what's going on with my radiator

[Empresive]

Trying to figure out what's going on with my radiator I just put in not long ago. Couple days ago I noticed while driving that it was registering in the red mark of the temp gauge and so I pulled over and popped the hood and nothing... no smoke or anything and the temp gauge would go down and up really quickly. just other day ago I was driving and temp gauge hit the red mark but I kept driving for a minute thinking it wasn't really over heating but check lighting came on so I pulled over and checked my radiator which turned out empty but before I put water in I noticed the only play smoke was coming from was right in front of the fan and wasn't a lot smoke either. So added water but didn't have enough so drove to next gas station and when I took the cap off radiator brown water came out and this don't look go at all see picture I added to this post. It's a brown funk and idk what to check for that causing this

[aleekat]

Someone using tap water instead of distilled.

[Empresive]

No it had coolant in it when i put the radiator in, i only used water for first time when it overheated and had no coolant in it and it was already brown looking like the picture before i ever put water in it.

[aleekat]

Originally Posted by Empresive

No it had coolant in it when i put the radiator in, i only used water for first time when it overheated and had no coolant in it and it was already brown looking like the picture before i ever put water in it.

This did not happen with a one time tap water. This is years of tap water with coolant. Previous owner?

[Blue Bowtie]

Probably neglected coolant. 5 years is the maximum life for DexCool. If it is mixed with an incompatible coolant, it is spent, and must be drained, flushed, and refilled. If DexCool concentrate is mixed with tap water, this can also occur.

[Empresive]

My old radiator i did use water alot in it cause it had a leak and yes i drove around with a leaky radiator for over 5 years and just installed a new radiator last year which i filled with coolant and never with water cause didnt want it to rust up inside. My dad thinks its because of stop leak i put it over the years with my old radiator but nothing with the new one all i did was put in the new radiator and filled it with coolant and that was it till recently i put in water for first time and it was all brown looking.

[Empresive]

Ok so my question would be, what should i do?

[Tech II]

Well, as Blue said, years of neglect.....but if you are just going to keep adding water instead of finding the leak, you are as much of the problem as the vehicle is.....

You are going to have to completely flush out the system, which means adding some type of coolant flush to the system, run the vehicle to normal operating temp, then let it cool down, remove the block drain plugs, disconnect radiator hoses, heater core hoses, and force water through the radiator, block and reverse flush the heater core, to remove all the rust/sludge in the system....

And all this will be for naught, if you don't find the leak and fix it....