"Secret" to clearing up rusty coolant???

[YY1]

I've been battling a sludgy, rusty coolant issue for over two years.

I'm on my third water pump.

Last year I put in a radiator, and now I'm starting to loose freeze plugs.

I've flushed the system six times in two years, once with Prestone flush and twice with Peak flush.

Last time I power flushed the heater core with a pressure washer for over 45 minutes (both ways), and thought sure that was the end.

Not so.

I've heard this is a somewhat common issue for these trucks.

What are youse guys doing do keep it at bay?

Truck is a 2000 R/T with 5.9.

Also- There's no oil in the water, or water in the oil.

 

[bear]

I've had a couple of mag motors and haven't had that problem "yet" . It sounds like your doing everything right . I'm not sure what to tell yah ? I assume your running anti freeze in it after you've flushed it ?

 

[bikinkawboy]

In farm tractors I've found that rusty coolant won't conduct heat as well as clean stuff and they'll run hot. I know that sometimes one freeze plug will rust through while others adjacent are still solid. Just the other day I popped out a rusted out freeze plug from the 360 I'm overhauling and about 1/3 of it was deeply pitted, but shiny clean steel while the rest was rusty. That makes me think electrolysis. That"s the same stuff that eats holes in cylinder liners and eats up head gaskets. The Chrysler 2.2 was notorious for leaking head gaskets caused by electrolysis. After you're run the coolant for a while, take a digital voltmeter or multimeter, set it to the lowest voltage setting, stick the positive lead into the coolant and ground the negative lead to the metal radiator. If it shows more than 0.2VDC, you need to be changing the coolant. There are additives that help neutralize the coolant using the same stuff found in the coolant filters/neutralizers found on large diesels.