Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Yup Steredent <sp> is worth a try, or Cillit Bang but you have to shout when you use it!

The radiator reserve tank will go yellow with heat and age, its plastic and that will happen. The best that you can do is try to clean some of the staining and deposits out, but the yellowed plastic will still remain.

BANG AND THE DIRT IS GONE!

Ben

Someone needs to try this on an old expansion tank.

http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com

I was up for giving that a go until I read the part about sticking hydrogen peroxide in a blender then I got a bit put off. Anybody know what a curry with a hint of peroxide tastes like?

I attacked mine this weekend. I got some strange looks from the young lady in the shop as I went purely to buy Sterodent. Maybe I will now have a reputation for the young bloke with no teeth but oh well.

Here's what it looked like before cleaning it out.



I could only really see the water level if I either hit the bottle to make the water move or shine a torch under it.

First thing I tried was leaving it for a couple of hours with a couple of sterodent tablets in and the result was not much. Giving it a shake moved a few bits of dirt but not much so I decided to throw a few more things at it. A dishwasher tablet, 4 sterodent tablets and a load of boiling water later and again some dirty was removed but it was still filthy. I ended up leaving it overnight soaking with a mighty 5 sterodent tablets, a dishwasher tablet, and some bleach.

This morning it was certainly cleaner but the water level was still quite hard to make out. I then realised that using my finger I could wipe the dirt off the few parts I could reach (it seemed to be mostly bits of rust) so I decided to follow up on a tip given to me on Pistonheads and chuck a load of rice in and shake it about with some water to try and 'wipe' the dirt off from the inside. It bloody worked!

Here's how it looks now



It still has some dirt in there but nowhere near as much as previously, it doesn't really matter now as I can clearly make out the water level despite the yellowness of it so I'm quite happy with that.

ETA: Word of warning, the rice is incredibly awkward to get out of the bottle once it's in there.

I love the Steradent in the back ground still.

Impressive results and pictures always prove the point. Don't forget to add antifreeze to make up for any lost.

It looks a lot better, plink plink fizz

I wouldn't know Sean I've still got all my own teeth! I noticed he wimped out on the "Shove it in the dishwasher" option.

Good work madrob !!

I just bought a new tank from my OPC, it was the cheapest at £80 inc.
I will clean up my old one using Steradent and Ebay it.

Any hints/tips on removing and re-fitting?

What colour should my coolant be? I have heard lots of advise (conflicting) about using red/blue anti freeze, and G11 rings a bell too?

Am i likely to need to bleed the system after replacing the tank?

When cleaning the old one you'll have to stuck something inside to shake around after the steradent has softened things up or it just won't come off.

Removing is quite simple, just drain the tank, remove the hoses (I blocked the larger hose using a halfords touch up paint as it was going to be off for a while and just clamed the smaller) then there's a nut at the bottom and the two bolts in the wing.

From what I understand it doesn't really matter what colour you go for as long as it's safe for aluminium engines, I found out that the standard Halfords stuff meets the specifications so will be filling mine up with that when I flush the system. G11 is no longer available, G12 has taken its place.

If it were me, I'd only use blue or green coolant that are non OAT based. I stress this as I found out that the 944 (for reasons unknown to me) uses a copper/brass heater matrix, which OAT based coolants (i.e red/violet, coolants with a 5 year + protection on them) will attack (or at least there is evidence of OAT coolants attacking the solder on copper rads). OAT otherwise does contain better agents in it for ally engines mind you, but with a copper matrix I personally wouldn't risk it (oddly enough, my car had G12 in it and the matrix had gone (not something I wish to change again LOL). I'd instead change the coolant every 2 years.

On this basis I would first of all look for coolants which have the BS6580 Standard to them (i.e they're Phosphate free (pretty much all coolants sold here are). Halfords 2 year is fine on this basis, as is Unipart's CoolBlue (what my local specialist used to use, and what I used when I refitted my new rad). From my local Unipart dealer (PartCo) it cost me around £10 for 5 litres. Glytasyn G48 will also be fine (and oddly enough they only recommend G48 and no OAT based coolants for the 944 unlike other cars of the same time (i.e for my '89 205 it says G50 (OAT based) is fine.

Right - I plucked up the courage to change the header tank over today.
I removed the tank quite easily remembering to put some WD40 onto the jubilee clips that are holding three of the four hoses that connect onto the tank.

10 minutes of taking stuff off and the tank was disconnected and off the car. Surprisingly though there wasn't any water in it at all. HELP !! Is this bad?

The old tank is very brown - no crud in there though, just staining. The markings on it show that its the original 1985 tank.



The hole it left in the car:



Old tank and new tank side by side:



The turbo engine bay is very cramped and my garage is full of junk making working on the car very difficult.

Anyway - working slowly it took about an hour and a half to get it all sorted.

The finished article.....



Will start the car on Friday and take for a short spin. I'm hoping that i will not need to bleed the system.
Next stop - the chemist for some Steradent and the old tank will be on Ebay.

Looks good, makes a big difference in the engine bay, well done!

Did I read correctly that there was no coolant when you did the change over? Yes that is bad, you could have fried you engine. Just as well you did this job. Do you have any coolant leaks on your garage floor, you must be losing some somewhere. I was losing a little every time I drove and had what I thought was a small oil leak. Alasdair from the forum told me that what I had thought was oil was actually coolant with all of the water evaporated off. Anyway it just needed a new clip to fix. I suggest keeping a close eye on your fluid levels in the future, oil too for that matter.

Mike

Thanks Mike. After writing my update i shook the old tank and some (all be it tiny) amount of water came out.
It must be like a maze in there - screwball scramble for those of you who are old enough to remember.

I couldnt tell how much coolant was in the car as it was so stained, hopefully i will not have fried the engine and all will be well now.

I will check for coolant leaks and oil leaks in the future, I know the car has some oil drips, but nothing major.