Of course the coolant is a conductor, but just as you can't light a light bulb with one copper wire going to it, to cant have electrolysis without a return path.
Now before David B. chimes in with stray current problems in marinas, I understand their can be funny things going on with electrolytes, dissimilar metals, relative sizes of dissimilar metals etc. Indeed there are probably all kinds of cool electrolytic things going on in the stock set up.
but in the car, one seemingly can isolate metal components "on the return path". And yes, there are dissimilar metals in the stock vanagon set up, metals of differing "nobility" and of differing surface area (exposed to coolant). Think of the brass in radiators, think of the cast iron, brass in sensors, aluminium in heads. I'd say that refreshing the coolant once a year would do much to quench runaway corrosion as any worrying about "isolated" copper in the system. i could be proved wrong of course :) Anyhoo, how many of us actually test our coolant , not for glycol conc, but for pH (which is an indication of corrosion inhibitor levels), and how many of us DO change and flush coolant every year? Alistair
On 29-Jun-06, at 6:54 PM, Jake de Villiers wrote: Well, don't argue with me, I'm not a professor! The guy who laid it out on the Subaruvanagon list made a convincing case for the coolant being an electrical conduit. Electrons are pulled from the aluminium by the copper through the coolant. I'm pretty sure the low coolant level sensor uses the water as a conductor. On 6/29/06, Alistair Bell <albell@uvic.ca > wrote: Jake, in circuits and electrolysis one needs a return path. isolate dissimilar metals with non conductor, its not a new idea. Alistair |
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