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Best way to clean a used radiator?

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cmcquistion

IT Director Senior
Joined
Oct 15, 2001
Location
Tennessee
I've been interested in setting up a fanless watercooling system.

I thought that a good sized car radiator should do the trick, to cool water in a watercooling system (a real radiator, not a heatercore.)

I got an old copper radiator from my brother in law. It is huge and made of copper. I think it should do the trick, but I need a good way to clean it, inside and out. The outside, I'm not too worried about (I'll scrub it with steel-wool, if I have to.) The inside, however, worried me a bit. This radiator probably has some gunk and grime in it and I don't want my computer to end up with gunk and grime and rust and creepy-crawlies.

Is there a good way to clean the inside of this thing?

Right now, my only idea is to hook it up, outside of the case, with just the radiator, the pump, a bucket, some wire screen, and a cloth filter. The pump would go in the bottom of the bucket. I would put a cloth filter (like an old t-shirt or something), over the top of the bucket and the wire mesh over that. The return water line would dump into the wire mesh, then go through the cloth filter, then go into the bottom of the bucket, where the pump would send it on its way, again. The screen and cloth would filter out large particles, but let the water get through. I'm wondering if I should use distilled water, with some watercooling additive in it, for this setup, so I don't introduce any biological contaminants or anything. I have a little distilled water (1 and a half gallons) and some additive (Swiftech) already.

Am I on the right track? Is there are smarter/faster/better/more effective way to do this?

Thanks.
 
Well you can buy things to flush out rads with from most car places (not sure what you have in the USA).

Sometimes i use stuff for descaling kettles and baths on mine as its nice and corrosive and cuts stright through the gunk.

Why dont you just flush it out with a hose pipe? It wont take long:)
 
slater3333uk said:
Well you can buy things to flush out rads with from most car places (not sure what you have in the USA).

Sometimes i use stuff for descaling kettles and baths on mine as its nice and corrosive and cuts stright through the gunk.

Why dont you just flush it out with a hose pipe? It wont take long:)

The kits they sell to flush out car radiators are just sets of splitters, to attach a garden hose (or hose-pipe, if you will:))

What do you use for "descaling kettles and baths"? I'm not really familiar with anything that I know would do the job, but not damage the radiator.

I did think of just flushing it with a garden hose, but I wasn't sure about leaving some tap water in it, which might support biological (alien?) life forms or something. Would the Swiftech additive I put in my regular distilled water, later, reduce or eliminate this issue?



P.S. I used to think the term 'hose-pipe' was a slang term from the southern US. Now, I'm wondering if we got it from you Brits?
 
Try a couple bottles of CLR. Pour them in and fill the rest with water and just let it sit. The quality of the cleaning job will depend with how long you leave it and how strong the mixture is.

However, if there was a leak in it once and it was brazed sealed, the brazing might be a little thin at that point and might start leaking when the reaction between the solution and the copper/gunk begins. I used this method and it worked but there was still a little bit of gunk left. Some other people might have something to add.
 
Have it hot tanked at a rad shop it would be cheap to do and save you hours of effort that may come up short of your goal..
 
diehrd said:
Have it hot tanked at a rad shop it would be cheap to do and save you hours of effort that may come up short of your goal..

Any idea (ballpark figure) what that would cost?
 
Go to the hardware store and pick up a bottle of muratic acid. Dilute it down to a reasonable amount and run a bit of that through for a minute or two, repeat if necessary. Needless to say, wear gloves and take care of your eyes...I've used that to clean brick, pipe, iron stains on bathtubs/sinks, etc. As long as it's diluted and you don't leave it, it WILL get most anything off. You'd have to be extra careful with a rad due to the thinness of the metals, but that's the route I'd go...
 
For cleaning out the radiator, use what's made for radiators...Prestone coolant system flush. It's made to go along with the flushing kit, but sold seperately in a yellow mini anti-freeze bottle (only about a 1/2 pint). Dump it in and fill with water, wait 20-30 minutes and dump it out.

In a pinch, I've found that white vinegar works better than CLR at descaling (in your coffee pot too). You can buy that by the gallon pretty cheap at any grocery store.

Flush it out with the hose-pipe (garden hose ;) ) and you'll be good to go. You can recirculate the Prestone like you'd outlined above before flushing it out. You can also do a final rinse with distilled water when done if you'd like.

For the outside, just take it down to the car wash and blast it clean from about a foot away.

There's lots of ways to do this, pick one and go...
Copper rads (full sized) are a good find!
 
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