I only replace my coolant every other year.  In that I have two
Vanagons, and they're on off cycles, I'm replacing coolant in one of 'em
every summer.

Mike

Mike Miller wrote:
> Well I don't know about testing but since I've had to do things to the van
> EVERY year that involved losing a bunch of coolant and refilling and burping
> the damn thing I'd say most of us change the coolant more than once a year.
>
> JMHO, YMMV, etc.
>
> Mike
>
> On 6/29/06 7:37 PM, "Alistair Bell" <albell@UVIC.CA> wrote:
>
>
>>Of course the coolant is a conductor, but just as you can't light a
>>light bulb with one copper wire going to it, to cant have
>>electrolysis without a return path.
>>
>>
>>Now before David B. chimes in with stray current problems in marinas,
>>I understand their can be funny things going on with electrolytes,
>>dissimilar metals, relative sizes of dissimilar metals etc. Indeed
>>there are probably all kinds of cool electrolytic things going on in
>>the stock set up.
>>
>>
>>but in the car, one seemingly can isolate metal components "on the
>>return path". And yes, there are dissimilar metals in the stock
>>vanagon set up, metals of differing "nobility" and of differing
>>surface area (exposed to coolant).
>>
>>Think of the brass in radiators, think of the cast iron, brass in
>>sensors, aluminium in heads. I'd say that refreshing the coolant once
>>a year would do much to quench runaway corrosion as any worrying
>>about "isolated" copper in the system. i could be proved wrong of
>>course :)
>>
>>Anyhoo, how many of us actually test our coolant , not for glycol
>>conc, but for pH (which is an indication of corrosion inhibitor
>>levels), and how many of us DO change and flush coolant every year?
>>
>>Alistair
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On 29-Jun-06, at 6:54 PM, Jake de Villiers wrote:
>>
>>Well, don't argue with me, I'm not a professor! The guy who laid it
>>out on the Subaruvanagon list made a convincing case for the coolant
>>being an electrical conduit. Electrons are pulled from the aluminium
>>by the copper through the coolant.
>>
>>I'm pretty sure  the low coolant level sensor uses the water as a
>>conductor.
>>
>>On 6/29/06, Alistair Bell <albell@uvic.ca > wrote:
>>Jake,
>>
>>in circuits and electrolysis one needs a return path.
>>
>>isolate dissimilar metals with non conductor, its not a new idea.
>>
>>Alistair
>>
>>
>
>