How to clean 10+ year old radiators

E

eclypse

2[H]4U
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
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I have 2 10+ year old rads and would love to use them again if p ossable.

They are 2 360 thermochill HE rads. Were sitting in a loop for the last 4 plus years by a relative of mine.. was a former build I made for him.. the rads were used by me prior to that. Pretty sure I stuck to distilled water with kill coils.

Anyways today I finally removed the barbs and shinned a flash like in them and looks pretty nasty which baffles me cause the clear tubes and res looked clear and clean.. have not taken the old blocks apart yet though.

Inside the rads from what I can see is white flaky gunk around the inner tube ends. Some redness as well. Figure it's prob plasterization.

Anways.. what to do to try and save like 160-200 bucks buying new rads?

Hot boiling water?? Some radiator cleaner from AutoZone?

Or just put them down?

These rads were tops back when and are seriously thick heavy duty rads.. would suck to toss them and I doubt some ek rad I can get locally can top them.
 
Wish I had some tide and mineral spirits around the house.

Ice just tried a 30 min straight soak of white vinegar and boiling hot water rinse and it did nothing.

Someone in another forum said the white stuff I see is lime build up. And to use Muriatic Acid for 1 hour and flush it.

Going to try it shortly as a last resort but 1 hour? Seems like nothing will be left after that long! Haha.

Might try 20 mins or so.
 
Thanks for the suggestion.. if I could get it locally I'd try it.

Doing the acid soak right now. Do it die!
 
jmilcher said:
I use clr and hot water... Circulate that for about 30 mins and flush very well after. Works great
Click to expand...

Tried that and seen no difference a few times. Though was solid non deluted clr and boiling hot water rinse.

Read white vinegar was better but that did nothing as well.
 
Muriatic Acid did it's thing for a whole hour and must of worked! About 90% better if say and instead of red on the insides it's yellow the color of brass.

Maybe another follow up would make it like new but don't think I want to attempt it and just call it good.

Giving it a 2 hour white vinegar soak and going to rinse it a half dozen times with boiling hot water and call it good enough!
 
That must have been really built up if white vinegar didnt break it down.
 
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