Distilled or Regular Water

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straightlinespeed

straightlinespeed

Sometimes I pretend to be normal
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So Im curious and looking for opinions. For as long as I can remember myself and others I know growing up used just regular tap water to mix with their coolant. I recently picked up a Aluminum Radiator and it said to run distilled water only. My block still has some regular water and coolant in it. I just want to make sure I dont hurt anything, but Im still curious as to the purpose of using distilled water.
 
PoisonDart74 said:
Distilled doesn't deposit calcium.
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Ahh, so basically its for mineral deposits adhering to the block and passages? Ok, so I only have around 500 miles on the engine. I doubt a lot of deposits have started. Do I have to flush the block out or would it be ok to just add distilled water/coolant mix to whats in the block now? I dont have any idea how much coolant is in a block.
 
Not really, I think its one of those, over the course of a millennium type of things, not the sky is falling. There's plenty of other junk in a cooling system that would take precedence if it were a big deal, which it isn't.
 
And a lot depend on the tap water. A lot of water in the midwest is pretty full of minerals for example and the pH is not nertal and can be acidic. Not sure about you part of MN. Use of distilled just eliminates the issues; but a lot of tap water gets used in car with littel or no adverse problems.

My water here is from a well in hard rocks on a mountain and is about as pure are you can get; just dumb luck where we sunk the well.
 
I agree with all the above. In all my years of working on cars my sink had a never-ending supply of water that worked fine. I never had a catastrophic failure but I have seen some crud come out when I flushed the cooling system. But, on a recent rebuild I used distilled water. It's only a few bucks and it's what I've always seen recommended. If your cooling system is empty why not try distilled as recommended? Even if there is some old coolant left it wont hurt anything.
 
Distilled or at least "grocery store" demineralized water never hurts. But it depends on "your area." I can still remember the first week I had my car in San Diego, wondered why everybody was wiping down their cars after the car wash. I soon found out!!! You could not see through the windshield!!!!

Friend of mine down there, now gone, had bought a brand new 70 Chev 3/4T 4x4, and used distilled water and 50-50 anti freeze exclusively. The inside of that system (with a head and cam change) looked like brand new in there. Life expectancy on radiators on tap water in San Diego is not very long.
 
FWIW, I saw somewhere recently where there was an anode you could screw in place of the drain petcock that would neutralize the coolant. Maybe legit...or maybe snake oil.
 
PA Dodger said:
FWIW, I saw somewhere recently where there was an anode you could screw in place of the drain petcock that would neutralize the coolant. Maybe legit...or maybe snake oil.
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Electolysis is a major factor,, that replacement anode plug is a sacrificial material so it gets eroded instead of the copper or aluminum rads, and other components.. (ever see one of those eroded aluminum timing covers, or intake manifolds)

Distilled water may not be the best for the cooling system either,, here's a link.. It's a good read..

"Generally distilled water is not used, as it tends to be "hungry water" looking for ions. A chemical additive is then added to help in a variety of ways. It will control pH, help the coolant to remain non conductive, and contains an oxygen scavenger to prevent cavitations, erosions, and pitting. Last but not least, a sacrificial anode is introduced into the cooling system to "pull" any stray electrolysis away from aluminum components."

http://sancarlosradiator.com/electrolysis.htm

hope it helps
 
Thanks for all the input, I have never realized there were so many different thoughts and ideas on this subject.

As for Evans Coolant...... $$$$$$$ Not sure that is worth it to me.. Unless someone can really prove to me that it works.
 
GEO said:
Does the premixed 50/50 antifreeze have distilled water in it?
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Why pay so much for water? :banghead:


It's much cheaper to buy the straight anti freeze and add the water yourself... Unless you're paying over $8 per gallon of water.... :violent1:
 
The biggest issue is far from calcium buildup or any of that. It's that with an aluminum radiator and cast iron block, you have just added (with tap water), an electrically conductive medium otherwise called an "electrolyte". Yes, you just turned your cooling system in to a battery comprised of two dis-similar metals. (Think: Copper and zinc, in a lemon, science experiment).

Pure water does not conduct electricity (the best for your cooling system is DI (Deionized) water from a laboratory, but that's going to extremes). It's the dissolved minerals and such in tap water that makes it conduct electricity. Think: this is why dropping the hair dryer in your bathtub while you're bathing is bad; the salts from your sweat make the water conductive.

Using distilled water (which is not ion-hungry, moreso than any other water) is the most cost-effective solution. Use a good coolant (Mopar G-05 is tops) to prevent rust and minimize corrosion. A bad system will actually have enough electrical current that you can measure the current in the cooling system. That current is corrosion happening. Change your coolant every 3 years, and I highly recommend a magnesium sacrificial anode. The Magnesium gets eaten more readily that your aluminum radiator, intake, heads, and timing cover. You'll have to replace it every so often.
 
And the premix and OE factory fill? Tap water. I've seen it with my own eyes.
 
Once again thanks everyone for the input on this subject! So I do have one question, where do you buy these anodes and whereabouts do you install them? I see some say the petcock on the radiator, perhaps another location?
 
marine supply sells the anodes by npt sizes. install in radiator drain plug and/or extra intake coolant port
 
As a chemist, I really just want to say there a lot of not completely correct statements being made. First, I'd be very surprised if a reduction-oxidation reaction occurred in the cooling system of a car. Mainly because you don't have a potassium chloride salt bridge to transfer ions and then your cooling system would be full of aqueous Al^+2. You would also have iron plating the inside of all your components (or the reverse of the two metals, id have to check their standard potentials to be sure). Second, the only reason to used distilled water is for the less minerals. All water is polar and electronegative (DI water is less, not completely free. The reason we use it is because it is the most neutral in all aspects. General water is most times acidic). Don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything, just wanted to clarify that. I'd also like to add that if your car is anything like mine, from the factory the battery had a negative lead to the engine. So electrons are being sent through the engine to complete circuits, so it is no surprise that the cooling system shows current, but it is in a fact a electrolyte cell since it's non-spontaneous.
 
After getting my new motor and cooling system up and running with reverse osmosis water and quality green coolant, I was getting these odd whitish soft gooey deposits everywhere I could see inside the cap opening. It would happen in just a few days.

I ended up using the anode attached to the radiator cap. It stopped all the strange electrolysis stuff going on and It didn't even consume the anode. Once installed it began coating just the electrode with this weird white gooey stuff. I wiped it off a time or two, and now it stays clean inside my system. I haven't had the problem since.

I also use those PH test strips for coolant strips from time to time test the coolant and keep an eye on things.
 
I ended up using distilled water in my car, but have yet to pick up a anode. Where did you find a cap with one installed?
 
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