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Re-use slightly contaminated coolant? Or am I being a cheapskate

Photon440 said:
Nobody here was suggesting that oil be added to the cooling system. Most of the comments suggested either removing the oil, or not using the old anti-freeze.
Click to expand...

And neither did my comment. How'd you surmise that? I never said to add any!

Since motor oil in the coolant slows heat transfer, the OP can make an educated decision if he wants to use as is, remove the oil from the coolant and reuse or put new coolant in.

I'd use new coolant, if it was my car.
 
odcics2 said:
And neither did my comment. How'd you surmise that? I never said to add any!

Since motor oil in the coolant slows heat transfer, the OP can make an educated decision if he wants to use as is, remove the oil from the coolant and reuse or put new coolant in.

I'd use new coolant, if it was my car.
Click to expand...
Well, you said "Oil in coolant slows heat transfer." Nobody had yet suggested using the oily part of the mix, so I wondered why you had mentioned that.
 
Not a wealthy man, but this isn’t Kansas in 1931. Pour it the **** away (responsibly) and put new stuff in. Jesus Chrysler. I’m starting to feel wasteful reading this.
 
Ah hell, the minute amount of lubricant left after you use one of the above mentioned methods to remove what little is there can't hurt a thing. Go ahead and reuse it.
 
zyzzyx said:
When I read posts about antifreeze/coolants my first question is: Did you use distilled or demineralized
water when you diluted your coolant? I can't believe how many people use tap water! All of the
minerals and chlorine in tap water really screw up a cooling system. So, before I tell you that it's
O.K. to re-use your coolant IF you get all of the oil out of it, I ask that.
Click to expand...
We have a well, and the exterior spigot is pre softener. Still not distilled but better than city water
 
With pretty fresh coolant, I'd let it sit over nite or a day or so, then use a paper towel in the "oil slick" areas to catch oil, then strain it through a coffee filter.
 
The paper towel trick won’t work to get oil off of water, I’ve tried. Works fantastic to get water out of oil, though. A paper towel will choose water over oil every time.
I’m a pro painter, and countless times my nitwit helpers have tried thinning alkyd (oil) paint with water, thinking alkyd (oil) based paint is the same as acrylic (water) based paint. Touch a corner of a paper towel to the water and it’ll shoot up into the towel almost instantly. The oil will stay behind.
Not sure if it’s a viscosity thing or what, but it works well for me.
 
I don't have any old pantyhose..... It's all new!
 
Sahara said:
The paper towel trick won’t work to get oil off of water, I’ve tried. Works fantastic to get water out of oil, though. A paper towel will choose water over oil every time.
I’m a pro painter, and countless times my nitwit helpers have tried thinning alkyd (oil) paint with water, thinking alkyd (oil) based paint is the same as acrylic (water) based paint. Touch a corner of a paper towel to the water and it’ll shoot up into the towel almost instantly. The oil will stay behind.
Not sure if it’s a viscosity thing or what, but it works well for me.
Click to expand...
I used to use the paper towel method to remove the old tramp oil floating on the cutting fluid reservoir on the band saw at work all the time. Worked like a charm.
 
Follow a fresh build that the owner pissed you off! till he leaves car in parking lot drain his antifreeze! Add your oily stuff back in !
Presto you got new antifreeze and you can watch him tare the car apart trying to figure out how oil got in there!!!
 
All this love for all your cars and now you're trying to pick that white stuff out of chicken ****. It's still going to be chicken ****. Replace it with new!!!
 
Sahara said:
The paper towel trick won’t work to get oil off of water, I’ve tried. Works fantastic to get water out of oil, though. A paper towel will choose water over oil every time.
I’m a pro painter, and countless times my nitwit helpers have tried thinning alkyd (oil) paint with water, thinking alkyd (oil) based paint is the same as acrylic (water) based paint. Touch a corner of a paper towel to the water and it’ll shoot up into the towel almost instantly. The oil will stay behind.
Not sure if it’s a viscosity thing or what, but it works well for me.
Click to expand...

In hind sight no doubt you are correct.
 
Actually, probably the best piece of advice I can give would be to not hire nitwit helpers...
I made my supervisors stop giving me summer students and life is good. Hardly ever need paper towels anymore and I ‘m sleeping better at night.
 
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