Antifreeze

What antifreeze do you guys use in your wet sleeve gas engines?
   maybe I am over thinking this but I have read for dry sleeve engines you can use any automotive antifreeze.
   But for wet sleeve engines you need a SCA type (supplemental coolant additive)
Supposedly minimizes cavitation?
I always thought it was only diesels that had to have that type antifreeze.
   As always any thoughts are appreciated.

Lets start with the traditional IAT coolant (GREEN). The modern version has all the SCA's but they become ineffective over time. Suggested adding the proper Sca amount in over the road trucks every 25,000 miles. If remember correctly your supposed to remove green coolant from service after 2 years.
Mixing green- 50/50 perfect. 70/30 strong can cause cavition even with SCA's and eat impellars liners etc.

If you use a "red" colored use a NOAT coolant. This is what Caterpillar suggests. The original Red coolant was a non nitraded OAT coolant (gm's dexcool, the orangeish red texaco) was tested for along period of time and found OAT coolants to cause electrolysis corrosion of liners in caterpillar engines. They insisted on nitrate additives, hence "N"OAT. NOAT coolants are extended life. What that means is they are good for 4 years and are supposed to be taken out of service. After that your additives dont function properly.
Another note- Color! Yellow, pink, clear, red, orange, purple. Almost all are OAT's, NOAT's or HOAT's

NEVVVVVEEERRRR MIX COOLANT BRANDS OR COLOR NO MATTER WHAT THEY CLAIM! Ive seen first hand the damage it can cause to cooling system when a claimed mixable coolant was used. You can find this info from sources that are not biased to color or brand like S.A.E. etc.

Personal experiences- i use an NOAT *Red* in modern engines. Eapecially qith lots of aluminum components. Ive also found in the case of all modern diesels i work on reds tend to leak easier. One drilling rig with (3) 3512 caterpillars will almost always have a weep hole in pump dripping or a gasket or oring slightly leaking.
Green on a rig with (3) 3512 cats never seem to seep or leak. But i have seen them eat the brass out of thermostats and waterpump impellars disappear due to being mixed to stout

Green to me is a safe bet with proper maintenance by testing coolant and adding Sca's when needed. I run green in all older engines and or heavy duty cases.

Idont think it does this anymore but Gm's dexcool when it first came out, would turn to brown jelly when mixed with traditional green.

In doing my research at work for coolant; we found that it was beat not to use red coolant on a good used engine that had previously eun green. The residue from green inside messes with the additives of red and ruins it. We found this on our 4 month engine inspections.
With green you can adjust by adding straight antifreeze and add you SCA's. Reds dead once it gets out of whack.

Thanks guys for your input.
I have straight water in my WD now ,need to drain before winter.
Green seems to have the vote so I will go with that.

I always use the john deere cool gard in everything its pre mixed and has anti cavitation additives for bigger motors and its no more money to buy

Second the distilled water only and tried the dishwasher soap thing on a D17DIV I picked up a few years back with interesting results. Was going to drain her enough to add straight anti-freeze but did not like the looks of the crud that came out of both the radiator and block. Sliced open two dishwasher "tabs", dissolved in a quart of water and added with enough distilled water to fill her back up. Ran it about an hour, let sit overnight and ran another hour before draining. I had to make a trip to Wally World for plenty more distilled water as it took a number of cycles to get her to run clean enough before I could add the anti-freeze.

Ok, I am getting an antifreeze education here.

CALEBnOK, very well explained, If I use green then test the coolant and add SCA's when needed..
   How do you test for this??

The distilled water I have never done but will now.
   I know what my well water did to my copper pipes until I got tired of fixing pin holes and tore it all out to put in plastic.

Look in to Compleat from fleetgard which is a Cummins Filtration product. More info online. Simple premixed 50/50 with deionized water and balanced sca package. Ready to use straight out of the jug. That is my choice. Been through all the ordeals with coolants and SCA's and water filters with and without sca and test strips leaking water pumps and cavitated liners and blocks and silicate drop out, scale in the radiators and overheating and on and on. This product seems to answer all of the above problems better than anything to date. Side note --remember when KHD bought AC and explained that direct air cooling was the answer!!

steve(ill) wrote: How many of you use SCA on larger GAS motors ?  I know it is common on diesels... I have never used addative  on  1/2 ton truck or 0-  200 HP tractor gas motors.

   I have read SCA's are for diesel and heavy duty motors like 3/4 ton gas trucks and up but also engines with wet sleeves because they are more prone to cavitation causing damage (pin holing) to the sleeve.

Dmpaul89 wrote: napa has a product called "napacool" that has the sca's. you just add the bottle to your antifreeze. kinda expensive i think was $18 a quart. i use that with my ford diesel trucks because they will get pinholes in the cylinders if you dont!

Don't just add the SCA indiscriminately. Too much is just as bad as not enough. Ford's specs are 1600 to 900 is ok. 800 to 300 can be recovered with VC8 (SCA), below 300 cannot be recovered.