Coolant and auto tranny fluid mixing ? Wisemen help please

[Phantom DSM]

Hello guys, i have been using GM coolant, you know that pink looking stuff. Its worked good for 2 years now.
My family owns a GM car and the tank always has this muddy look to it and smells weird, we change it all the time, but i guess it does it. GM says you dont have to change it for 5 years, redicilous !

Now when i drained my coolant the other day, it had this muddy look to it, even when i touched it it stuck to my hand like grease man !! very slimy feel, and much darker than usual. I always use distilled water. It stained the ground with a shiny look to it.

I have an auto tranny, and the cooler is inside the radiator, i hope im not mixing tranny fluid.
Please help me, do you guys get thick muddy fulid coming out, dark brown to red ??

Is the GM coolant good for dsm's or that " green " stuff ?
-thanks

 

[hewhoisknot]

What don't you pull all the lines off the radiator, pump water through the upper radiator hose hole and see if water comes out the tranny fluid fittings?

BUN

 

[Phantom DSM]

I had to get get the car running at the time fast, but i never thought about that.
Do you think there could be adverse affects on the tranny itself, its been a champ for awhile, i dont want to mess it up

Thanks a lot bro

 

[Sinner]

If you are using one kind of coolant you should not switch over to a different type. the problem that you are having is that your car used to use plain old green coolant and you switched to the red coolant and the two do not mix if you do mix them you will get the muddy coolant that you have now and it will be almost impossible to get rid of it. I have seen people have this problem all the time and it is usally caused by some kid at those oil change places that has no clue what he is doing and puts the wrong coolant in your car to top it off. If you think just draining and flushing out your system will cure it then I say good luck because I have never gotten it to go away eventually it seems to always come back and if you don't continue to flush and refill your coolant after this problem then you can expect to have it eventually clog your cooling system.

 

[1gcrazy]

wow...why the hell do we need two kinds of antifreeze? The green stuff works just fine.

 

[Auto RS T]

Oh, there is more than two kinds! Honda is now running some type of blue antifreeze, Ford runs orange, yellow, or the classic green.

Dex Cool tends to turn into a muddy slime if it is exposed to air for a period of time, this could also be the problem along with mixing coolant types, if your coolant was low.

I would do a complete cooling system flush. Flush the radiator, take off the heater hoses and flush the core, take out/ clean the reservoir, and flush the block out. Run water through them until the water comes out clear. Then refill the coolant and see where you are at.

 

[jumpfroggy]

+1 on the flush. Each old car I've had or worked on (not many) has had gunk in the coolant. Heck, there's gunk in the brake and clutch fluids. But coolant seems to get the worst, like someone's poured grease or oil-paints into the radiator.

So flush for real to clean that out. Use the flushing stuff (walmart), you run with it for 8 hours theb drain it out. Do it a few times. Then flush with water, and refill and monitor for more gunk.

It's possible you have a sight head gasket leak. That leaves lots of oil in the coolant, dirties it up. Notice any other symptoms? (rough/shaky startup, white smoke, etc)

Good luck.

PS. Might just be me, but if you're finding oily stuff I doubt it's because of a coolant issue. There's plenty oil in the car to leak into the cooling system, and it's probably coming from there. I don't even know if Tranny/Cooling system leaks are that common, never read about any.

 

[adiffrentcity]

And when he says flush, he doesn't mean just with water. Use some of the coolant system flush available at any parts store and follow the directions. If you are an overkill kind of guy, use the quick flush which takes a couple of hours then follow up with the slow flush that takes like a week. And never ever ever mix colors again.


EDIT: well, wasn't trying to be repetitive, guess we posted at the same time

 

[Phantom DSM]

Thanks guys,
Tha car has a new motor with 10,000 miles and have been using gm coolant since then, but i have an ipt auto tranny, and the cooler for its fluid is inside the radiator. thats why i had doubts, since it stained the ground with a shiny oily look to it. im gonna pull the radiator out and check to see whats going on
Im gonna do the flush like you guys said, thanks so much for the help fellas

 

[Defiant]

Regardless the cause -probably a combination of owner neglect, poor radiator cap choice by GM, and the hideous piece of shit that was the GM V-6- DexCool got such a stained reputation that I can think of no earthly reason (including not only getting it free, but also being paid to use it) to ever put that crap in a DSM. And double that for the goosepiss VW is using.
Stay with Prestone. It's cheap, available and dependable.
Pressure test your radiator, with special attention paid to your internal AT cooler. If your AT fluid is anything less than pristine, have it flushed and replaced by a shop that can do a complete evacuation, including the torque converter's contents.

 

[dsmspike]

If your trans cooler is leaking then your coolant will seriously look like a strawberry milkshake. I work on GM's all day as a dealership mechanic and have seen that happen a few times. The Hummer H2's are notorious for that and our dealer bought into Hummer so we sell alot of them. But if your coolant don't look exactly like a strawberry milkshake then you do't have any trans fluid in it. If you do however then I suggest after you replace the radiator then you need to get some cooling system flush solution and fill the system with water and run the solution and water mix in the car at a faster idle than normal for about 40 minuites. Then drain it out and fill it back up with water and run it for about 25 minuites. Then drain it again and fill with water again and run it for about 10 minuites. After that just fill it with coolant/water mix. Also you're going to need to flush the trans out. Not just drop the pan and change the fluid in the pan and filter but you need to get it all out of there. If there's trans fluid in the coolant then it's the other way around too and the coolant in the trans will ruin it and make it start slipping badly and tear up the clutches inside it. I really can't stress enough how important it will be to actually flush the trans unless you want to end up paying someone for an overhaul in the near future. For the cooling system if you go to a GM dealer they sell this heavy duty cooling system flush that works really great. Those are the instructions straight from the bottle that I gave you to flush the cooling system out. So to recap we have
Coolant will look like strawberry milkshake if there's trans fluid in it. If it don't look like strawberry milkshake there's no trans fluid in it.
Replace radiator and flush cooling system out with heavy duty flush solution
FLUSH TRANNY unless that is if you want to pay for an overhaul.
This is of course if there is fluid in the coolant. Good luck man.

 

[fallenauthority]

I agree with Defiant. Dex-cool is by far the shittiest invention ever to come out of GM besides the Iron Duke(bwahaha). I see people come through my shop on a daily basis with a car thats maybe 2 years old using dex-cool and the overflow tank is FILLED with nasty brown, mud. Flush the whole radiator system out REALLY well, and switch to prestone. No reason to be using shitty dex-cool.

 

[Phantom DSM]

you guys are right, dex -cool is weird . I dont know why it gets muddy like that. The coolant i just drained does not look like strawberry milkshake color, it was dark brown
( muddy). The tranny shifts fine, so i guess the tranny cooler is not leaking. Im gonna switch over to something else. I dont wanna use the green stuff, Prestone sounds good. I hope the block doesnt have anymore of this muddy crap after all this flushing.
I want to take out the plug on the block to drain it again, and go from there.
Thanks so much guys again for the input

 

[Defiant]

Hopefully some myth and hype-free DexCool info:
http://www.imcool.com/articles/antifreeze-coolant/dexcool-macs2001.htm

 

[Phantom DSM]

Very interesting article from Defiant about Dex-cool. The integrity of this coolant is very weird. I guess its not breaking down, but i did notice that i would need to check it a lot. it's been cold, but i think the contamination theory is correct. My pressure cap is freaking old, so are my hoses. Im going to replace them soon, and try Prestone for less of a hassle.
Do you guys think additives like Redline Water Wetter degrade the consistency of a coolant ?

 

[adiffrentcity]

Additives like Water Wetter work by breaking down the surface tension of water enabling it to more effectively transfer heat from metal engine parts. I don't know why this would hurt antifeeze, I personally used Water Wetter and didn't experience any adverse effects

 

[Defiant]

You don't use enough Water Wetter to affect the anti-freeze. It'll be fine.

 

[Phantom DSM]

Thanks guys, im switching to Prestone and water wetter as soon as my Fluidyne radiator comes in. Im tired of seeing that muddy shit in the radiator, and i dont want it in the new setup.