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Date:         Mon, 28 Aug 2000 10:27:43 -0700
Reply-To:     Alistair Bell <albell@uvic.ca>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Alistair Bell <albell@uvic.ca>
Subject:      Hydrophilia,
              or how I stopped worrying and learned to love distilled water
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

I shouldn't be amazed, but everytime someone says not to use distilled (or de-ionized) water in a car's cooling system I have to wonder what the heck they are talking about.

You should use pure water (distilled, double distilled, reverse osmosis, whatever) in the cooling system if you have any doubts about the purity of the water coming out of your domestic water supply. Some are blessed with sweet soft water, with just a hint o' chlorine, others (me included) have well water that is pratically saturated with calcium and magnessium carbonates.

I would not use my water in anyone's cooling system. You should see the precipitates left in a kettle after just one use.

So I use water from the lab, 18 MOhm water (purity described as a function of its conductivity). Yes the same water that is sometimes, and amusingly described as "hungry" or "extremely corrosive",

As soon as you mix your pure water with the coolant, you don't have pure water anymore, but you know that you have not introduced any dissolved substances that may precipate out in the cooling system.

Now you have a solution of ethlyene (or propylene) glycol, water, and a whole witch's brew of various salts etc as buffers and corrosion inhibitors.

Alistair


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