Cooling system--brown sludge, where's that leakage current going?

[lectraplayer]

I'm having a brown-sludge problem with my car's cooling system ('96 Taurus, Vulcan OHV engine) and also am measuring .3 volts or more from ground, at the negative terminal of the battery, in the cooling resivorar. I just had to change my heater core with a copper coil last week too. The entire engine and the main cooling radiator measure nothingness. The only place I can find voltage is the heater core itself, which measures the same as the resivorar, at .3 volts. Even my secondary battery in the trunk measures nothingness between its negative terminal and the main battery's negative terminal, with a dead short in between. The secondary battery and associated charging system is the only thing I've added to this car, and everything related to it is checking out fine. What would be a likely culprit? What may be loose?

[wrightz28]

I'm assuming the system was flushed after the core replacement?

The sludge could be a couple of things. The failed core and presense of sludge, usually indicate 2 things to me. Either 1) There is or was a external leak in the sysytem someone added a bunch of stp (barz) leak in the system to plug up the leak, and ended up plugging the core at the same time. Or 2) the head gasket failed because the core usuall gets the oil/coolant mix plugged up in it.

The voltage reading could just be the fact that the core is copper (conducter) and it's redidule voltage from the dashboard electroincs passing through it to ground

[mwt878991]

The brown sludge problem is quite common and very well Known to Ford.

There used to be a kit available to fix it and for quite a while it was free.
Ford Dealerships still list it but I dont know about availability.

The problem is electrolysis that occurs.

It included a bypass hose with an orifice in it that kept flow to the heater core at all times. I believe Ford started factory installing it in 98 or 99.






The way to fix it is

drain radiator

pull T stat


Add a chemical cleaner like prestone

back flush it thru the degasser tank ( I even changed mine out because it was full of crud)

This procedure may need to be performed several times.

Change the water pump

Also run a ground wire from the heatercore to the water pump.

Then add the proper coolant.

Although this is not verbatim to Ford's TSB it pretty much covers the correct procedure.

Also I found out that changing the Water pump is a step that you can't skip.
I did everything but the waterpump twice and it kept coming back until I changed it out

For explicit instructions on this you can go to www.taurusclub.com and search Brown Coolant

Mike

[lectraplayer]

That's just it, I know the problem is electrolosys, and I replaced the heater core because it was leaking. The electrolosys problem may be what made the first one leak, as I have been fighting brown sludge since I got the car two years ago. It came with the bypass kit. The only thing I know of now that could be causing it would be a bad ground somewhere. Had I not replaced the core, I would still have heat, but would be putting water on the ground. No cooling system plug material has been used on any vehicle I've had, and I want to keep it that way! Also, in searching for another leak (a head-gasget problem, but no oil or water where it doesn't belong, other than water on the ground, again!) I changed the water pump and found the old one was getting worn, but not near dead. The brown-sludged continued. I'm trying run-change cycles to try to clear the cooling system out, but as soon as I get it clear, it would dirty back up. My run-clear cycles would be I would change the water to straight water, drive it for that day, then change the water again as soon as I get home (trying to knock all the crud out). Upon concluding several of those cycles, the water would be clear for a few days, then would become brown sludge again.

[mwt878991]

Did you run a ground wire from the heater core to the water pump?


Prestone makes a cleaner that you run for 8 hours of drive time over several days. I ran that a couple of times also and it helped


Mike

[Huney1]

I use to work around diesels and Cummins diesels have a coolant additive that reduces electrolosis, so I guess you'd have to find a Cummins dealer to get it.
Engines working in salt water with the drive shaft and prop in the water have a bad time with electrolosis and I've seen it eat up a bronze prop so bad it looked like worms got in it. We attached big pieces of zinc to the keel cooler and rudder and the zinc was sacrifical and electrolosis ate it up first then srtarted working on other metal parts, especially bronze, brass and iron.

In the case of an auto engine basically sitting on rubber tires so it is not grounded to the "Earth", . . . . I wonder if one of those grounding straps that you put on and hang down from the frame and touch the ground would help reduce electrolisis? When it gets cold and dry here the static electricity ZAPS me when I get out of the car and with the ground strap there's no static electricity build up. I know zilch about electricity but doesn't the grounding strap give the electricity a place to go instead of working on eating up metal and scaring heck out of me with the ZAP ? ? ?