Chemical Coolant System Cleaning

[MadDogJacoby]

Does anyone have experience power flushing their coolant system?

I'm talking the soap & water flush, then sulfamic acid & flush, then oxalic acid & flush, then baking soda to neutralize, then distilled H20 flush.

Bypass the heater core, remove the thermostat, anything I'm missing? Maybe a new head gasket before?

[palmerwmd]

Maddgo..
this sounds like something me and a roomie did many years ago on an ancient BMW.
And in theory it should do some good.

But I will defer commentary to our proper resident expert smj.

Are you having overheat issues? Or just leery of extra deposits in the nooks and crannies of your cooling system?

[MadDogJacoby]

I had fixed a coolant leak earlier. But then I saw that more coolant was leaking after I had stopped the vehicle. Seemed like the coolant leak was cuz of the water pump going bad.

It was about that time for the timing belt anyways, so I decided to bite the bullet. On teardown saw that the thermostat either rusted shut or perhaps closed permanently after earlier overheating. Wanted to clean that sucker out before I put the new water pump in there

Many questionable things have been uncovered, such as finding the end of a wire brush in one of the air pipes in the front.

[Heavy hitter]

nothing sketchy about the wire brush. its supposed to be in there

[smj999smj]

Yes, the "wire brush" is factory installed and is called a "flame arrestor."