[krathone]

Thanks guys for the responses.

I bought the vehicle new. While it was under warranty, the dealer did all the routine maintenance. After the warranty expired, I had a friend who was a mechanic who took care of her. Although doing minor repairs isn’t completely foreign to me, my mechanic was just too affordable not to let him do the dirty work. He is now retired and moved away and I am without a mechanic so I’m trying to do as much as I can myself. I came to this point after having a few unsatisfactory results in getting problems resolved with the Blazer. You take it to the shop, they diagnose the problem. They fix the problem. You pay them. The problem isn’t really resolved and you have to take it back. Anyway, I’m going to tackle the gasket job myself. The posts and detailed step by step instructions on this site gives me the confidence to tackle the job.

Anyway, when I needed to top off the system, I never used Dexcool. As I mentioned before, didn’t have any instructions to do so and didn’t know there was such a thing until a couple of months ago. I haven’t seen any sludge in the radiator. The puddling on the block looks and smells like nothing but straight coolant. Not gummy or anything, just normal consistency. I suppose my vehicle was manufactured before the use of Dexcool in the model. I’ll do a complete flush of the cooling system once the job is completed.

Thanks again for the feedback.