Question about Radiator Coolant

I can't seem to find specific info on what coolant to use, though I promise I've looked. I did find Warchild's "radiator blowjob" procedural (though many find doing that whole process overkill) but he does specify the coolant he prefers in that post. In fact, he says this: (Use) "A gallon of your Coolant brand of choice. Do ensure that whatever brand coolant you choose, it is silicate and phosphate-free. This is extremely important. If your nervous about using other brands, you certainly can't go wrong with Yamaha Coolant. Personally, I have used the pictured Havoline Dex-Cool Extended Life coolant for the past 8 years on 5 different bikes for a combined 350,000 miles, and never a single problem. Havoline Dex-Cool is The Shit."

I went to Walmart looking for that, but no luck. So I bought Prestone Dex-Cool, with all the other attributes he ;mentioned, like "silicate and phosphate free," and "extended life." And it does say it's made for aluminum radiators (this was the rad I recently punctured and had repaired, so I know it's aluminum.) Anylhow, it looked right. But when I went to mix it--well, it's orange. I was looking for green, like the old stuff. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard an echo of an alarm about using the wrong color coolant. Am I worrying too much?

Mike, avoid the orange DEX Cool products. Prestone Extended Life and many other polyethylene glycol coolants are fully compatible with original coolant.

Don't be tempted to do the "blow job". Totally unnecessary. Green extended life coolant is your friend. If you want to spend more get Honda, but it's totally unnecessary.

If you use DexCool it is a an HOAT coolant chemistry that can have bad reactions with the original, and requires a complete flush and blow job...don't go there.

I'm not sure on the thoughts of others but my personal preference is the Honda blue coolant. I think Prestone makes a universal that is more of a yellow that may be the better choice over the Dex-cool. I work at a Honda dealer, on the automotive end ,and have heard of a few people having corrosion issues after switching to the dexcool in their newer aluminum systems. I've had good luck with switching other vehicles over to the Honda coolant and asked the local Yamaha dealer what their thoughts were on me running it in the FJR, they said there should be no problems.

I'd use an extended life coolant and change it at valve check intervals...... Prestone is what I use.

Dex-cool is not compatible with traditional ethylene glycol coolants, which is why Warchild had to go through that extensive blow-job process: he had to get ALL of the original coolant rinsed out before pouring in the Dex-cool. Mixing them will have all kinds of sludge condensing out and clogging up the works.

Some of the coolants on the shelf say they're compatible with either the green stuff or Dex-cool, but it does NOT go the other way around. Do NOT put Dex-cool in with other coolants. If you want Dex-cool, you have to have a really good reason, and you have to get all of the old stuff out.

Warchild presented that process like "Here's how to make sure you really get rid of the old used-up coolant," but all he was really doing was changing from green to Dex-cool, so he HAD to get all the old stuff out, whether it was used-up or not.

I dun ran water wetter in my last bike, (Added to the ethylene glycol coolant.) and the bike seemed to run cooler. Might be good for them Sacramento summers.

With all the vehicles I have at the house. I use Peak Global. It has no phosphates or silicates in it.

BanjoBoy said:

I dun ran water wetter in my last bike, (Added to the ethylene glycol coolant.) and the bike seemed to run cooler. Might be good for them Sacramento summers.

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most road race bikes use water wetter to improve the cooling characteristics of plain water for on track use because coolants are not allowed on the race track. (Very hard to clean up if there is a spill) Water Wetter is supposed to help regular coolants be more effective also.

Zerex Asian Vehicle Formula/Silicate & Borate Free - 50/50 Pre-mix (Valvoline Brand) 5 Years/150,000 Miles

A forum member that I trust turned me on to this product.

A lot of Motorcycle water pumps do not like anti freeze with silicates and phosphates and the pumps would leak after awhile so I make sure to get the anti freeze without it. Sometimes it takes some looking around to find it. I've never seen the Asian formula but that sounds like a good way to go.

Another vote for the Honda Type 2 blue coolant. I buy it at the Honda car dealership.

TomInPA said:

Mike, avoid the orange DEX Cool products. Prestone Extended Life and many other polyethylene glycol coolants are fully compatible with original coolant.
Don't be tempted to do the "blow job". Totally unnecessary. Green extended life coolant is your friend. If you want to spend more get Honda, but it's totally unnecessary.

If you use DexCool it is a an HOAT coolant chemistry that can have bad reactions with the original, and requires a complete flush and blow job...don't go there.

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Well that's interesting. I switched to Dex-Cool because of what I read in this forum and have been running it for several years.

So, how many people have had problems with their FJR cooling system that could be attributed to the wrong choice of coolant?

Gee, it is awfully quiet here...

MajBach said:

TomInPA said:

Mike, avoid the orange DEX Cool products. Prestone Extended Life and many other polyethylene glycol coolants are fully compatible with original coolant.
Don't be tempted to do the "blow job". Totally unnecessary. Green extended life coolant is your friend. If you want to spend more get Honda, but it's totally unnecessary.

If you use DexCool it is a an HOAT coolant chemistry that can have bad reactions with the original, and requires a complete flush and blow job...don't go there.

Click to expand...

Well that's interesting. I switched to Dex-Cool because of what I read in this forum and have been running it for several years.

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Don't worry about it. If you do regular coolant replacements as recommended in your MOM you won't have any problems at all. I speak from experience , I've been using it since '08.

RossKean said:

So, how many people have had problems with their FJR cooling system that could be attributed to the wrong choice of coolant?
Gee, it is awfully quiet here...

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Yeah, lots of hot air with do's and don'ts but no failures regardless of what is used. IMHO it's not the coolant so much as the willingness to maintain the cooling system.

Has anyone researched the manufacturer of Yamaha coolant? The 2014 coolant is blue. Apparently the Honda Type 2 is also blue. Perhaps both Yamaha and Honda are using the same supplier who custom packages for both. If true and the formula is the same, it would likely be cheaper to buy it from the Honda car dealership than the motorcycle stealers. Any of you tech savvy folks have advice?

art miller said:

Any of you tech savvy folks have advice?

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Tech savvy advice? Like RTFM? smileysmileysmiley IMHO coolant used is just another of the way-over-thunk things that people with too much time on their hands do: worry about nonexistant problems. Dunno about the new fangled Gen3 thingees but coolant spec's for my '07 is plain and simple: pick what ever [FSM spec] "high quality ethylene glycol antifreeze containing corrosion inhibitors for aluminum engines" you want. Nothing about silicates, phosphates, color, etc. Follow the maintenance schedule unless you know it's silly to do so (like 8K spark plug changes). IMHO there's nothing hard about changing coolant once per yr. Really, how many folks on this forum gnash such teeth over their higher-priced auto's coolant? I'd bet "not many". smileysmileysmiley

The "blowjob" instructions mention de-ionized water. I ran de-ionized water in lieu of distilled water and Water Wetter only in my track bikes and they ran 10 degrees cooler than they had with distilled water. When I told some of the more veteran members of the paddock about this some warned me that de-ionized water would cause damage to the innnards of the water jackets and rad and that they'd leech minerals, etc. As long as we're possibly splitting hairs, can anyone speak to the scientific merits of de-ionized water in a cooling system?

Once you mix deionized water with a normal antifreeze, it is no longer deionized! Regular antifreeze has lots of dissolved minerals so the fluid is not aggressive. Deionized or distilled water is a bit aggressive but I doubt it would do much damage, even without antifreeze. I don't know anything about the composition of Water Wetter co can't venture an opinion on that combination but my preference is to use some sort of demineralized water when diluting antifreeze - dissolved Ca and Mg in normal tap water can cause encrustation; especially if the water is hard.

For what its worth, I've been using Red Line water wetter & distilled water in my race bikes for 20 years with no issues.

One bike (SV-650) has been in use since 1999 with anti-freeze in the winter, flushed out every spring and switched to distilled & water wetter for the race season. Never a problem with overheating or corrosion.