Cleaning the Coolant Recovery Tank

[IPreferDIY]

My 2000 MGM had the misfortune of having the orange coolant crap being put into it many years ago. The coolant has been thoroughly flushed already, but the coolant recovery tank is coated with a dark red substance. The first photo below was one I found on the internet showing the problem. Unfortunately, the inside of the tank appears to have some kind of maze-like design, so you can't really stick anything in there. The second photo shows a bottom view that might help illustrate this. The bulgy parts seem to be separate compartments divided by walls with holes in them.



I don't see much hope of cleaning the red crap out, so I'm hoping to find a half-decent tank at the local U-pull sooner or later. Unfortunately, the ones I saw last week were pretty grimy looking. I'm ready to do another flush, so I might not wait until I find a really clean one. Is there some kind of (preferably cheap) cleaner I could use if I don't find a clean tank? Thanks in advance.

[cld783]

You could try soaking it in CLR

[johnunit]

When we sell a coolant flush and the recovery tank is nasty, we basically just fill the tank with a strong soap and shake like hell. Sometimes you can knock stuff loose with a screwdriver or long brush but it doesn't look like you can do that there. Maybe some hand cleaner in the Water so you have lots of grit? Just make damned sure you rinse well

[turbo2256b]

i TRIED ALL SORTS OF CLEANERS A FEW YEAR BACK ON cREAMY nothing really worked except a piece of rag and one of those 3 prong gripper things. yOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO CLEAN A COMPARTMENT OR SO but not all

[VicCrownVic]

I'm not familiar with the newer tanks, but if it has an opening wide enough you could try getting a toilet brush like the one below:

Then cut the wire loop so that can be straightened.

Then if you can get that into the bottle you might be able to clean quite a bit of the build up off the walls of the tank. As far as what cleaner to use maybe some dish soap.

[porschpow]

I used a brush used to clean dryer vents that have a flexible handle that can bend in various ways. It won't clean everything, but it will do a good job getting most of the nooks and crannies

[knucklehead0202]

If you're gonna pull the tank out, put a bunch of bleach in it and let it sit a while. Alternatively, you could use a diluted acid product like Hercules Sizzle or something similar. That'd definitely clean it up. Muriatic acid for pool cleaning would work.

[sly]

I just used my sprayer nozzle on my hose. managed to pound out about 95% of the crap. The tank was yellowed, so couldn't do anything about that, but it still looks way better. That was on my 93. The 88 has a 90 towny tank in it now.

[GM_Guy]

Hot water + laundry detergent (arm & hammer powder #1 choice, Sunlight powder #2, Tide is useless) and shake the fuck out of it. Set it in the hot summer sun for a while (with the laundry detergent that is) and shake some more later on. Rinse thoroughly and you should have a relatively clean tank when you are done. You'll never fully get rid of the dye stain (plastic being semi-porous and all), but you can always try adding a bit of bleach to the mix to help with that.

Laundry detergent in a tub is also great for degreasing parts (that will require some scrubbing) such as intakes. Dry off, hang on a line in the sun and paint 'em.

[I've never tried liquid laundry detergent, so no idea how effective that stuff is]

Alex.

[SVT98t]

You could probably just have my spare one.

-ryan s.

[FordMan77]

I've had good luck with LA's Totally Awesome cleaner. Found it at dollar general but may be avail. other places. Used it full strength to clean my entire engine bay, and the coolant tank on my grand prix when I wanted the deth-cool junk out of it to switch to green. Cleaned the bottle up and got a nice clean engine too.

[IPreferDIY]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I ended up getting one of the grimy tanks today for the sake of getting my coolant flush out of the way. Less than $10 total at the U-pull. Here's some photos of inside the fill hole showing the compartmentalization and holes in the walls (both top and bottom):



My experience has been like turbo2256b's, except that I haven't tried various cleaners: the discoloration on the walls of the U-pull tank was from some slimy stuff that had to be wiped off. I keep old toothbrushes for cleaning in tight spaces, and I used one on this tank. Here's the result, which accorded with turbo2256b's prediction:



That was done using just plain water. I then tried bleach for about an hour since I happened to have some old bleach lying around. It didn't do much of anything. Maybe the bleach was just too old, but I think the situation is analogous to those "touchless" car washes: it's fine if you have a layer of dirt you want sprayed off, but it ain't gonna do much for heavily soiled areas.

I've got my red tank soaking in bleach, and I'll leave that overnight and see what that does. The toothbrush and water didn't do a whole lot for it.

I've seen the CLR commercials, but I've always regarded it as too expensive. Also, the cooling system shouldn't have any calcium or lime in it, so it wouldn't be my first choice unless I saw a good demo. I'm not sure I'd want to go the soap route since, with my luck, I'd probably end up rinsing all day to get all the bubbles out. I'll keep everything in mind for future reference though.

I'm planning on posting stuff about my coolant flush in another thread, but here's a preview of how persistent the problem can be from the orange coolant:



I use a yellow five-year coolant, so don't be thrown by the lack of a green color. Incidentally, this was 3.5 years after a thorough flush with a rad change and then a partial drain-and-fill for the heater core.

[gadget73]

White vinegar will do about the same as CLR, though it takes longer. Its also rather less of a pain in the ass to get rid of, and far less aggressive on metals and such.

[John Fritz]

Rock Auto.

29 bucks.

[IPreferDIY]

Rock Auto.

29 bucks.

It's actually showing $35 Canadian, plus $25 for shipping, plus $5 for taxes. I'm good with the $10 I spent. I can now actually see the coolant level without taking off the cap. It's just above the high mark in this photo:



At this point, the red tank is basically a science project. When I first took it off, I just washed it out with water. There was lots of crud in there, and I got it to the point where nothing else was coming out. I then left it overnight with some bleach in it. I lot more crud came out, and there was even a wee bit of dissolved red stuff too. I used some liquid laundry soap to clean out my 'clean' pail, and I ended up putting that in the tank with some water and more bleach. After leaving it sit for about a week with occasional shaking, it did next to nothing. No more chunks of crud and no dissolved red stuff. Here's a current photo:



I have some old vinegar that I might try next.