Community Forums

jd956jd956 · 01-01-2014, 03:07 PM

Happy New Year from Lake Conroe, Texas. I am thinking about switching from NAPA brand green ethyl glycol coolant requiring supplemental coolant additive to Fleetguard ES Compleat OAT coolant in my 1997 purely mechanical Cummins C8.3 engine / 1997 American Eagle, yet know no one who has done it. I am the second owner of my coach and am not sure about making the switch this late in the game. My concern would be developing leaks after changing what has always been used. I have had no cooling problems and my current mileage is 75,000 - I have changed it twice since acquiring it and have never observed any rust, etc. Wondering if I should just leave well enough alone or make the switch. I am not due for a change until this summer. I currently change it every other year. Any experiences would be appreciated. THANK YOU, Jeff

tom chelbana · 01-01-2014, 03:17 PM

On our 04 Essex when new Spartan put the long lasting Coolant which if I remember right was orange OAT coolant which wasn't correct for the low coolant sensor so the low coolant light keep coming on. They had to flush the cooling system and put in regular HD diesel coolant to make the low coolant sensor work correctly. May not be a problem with mechanical 8.3.

BobGed · 01-01-2014, 03:40 PM

If you should decide to change, let me know. My offer in the following thread still stands:
http://www.irv2.com/forums/f258/flee...le-186276.html

spike45 · 01-02-2014, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jd956jd956

Happy New Year from Lake Conroe, Texas. I am thinking about switching from NAPA brand green ethyl glycol coolant requiring supplemental coolant additive to Fleetguard ES Compleat OAT coolant in my 1997 purely mechanical Cummins C8.3 engine / 1997 American Eagle, yet know no one who has done it. I am the second owner of my coach and am not sure about making the switch this late in the game. My concern would be developing leaks after changing what has always been used. I have had no cooling problems and my current mileage is 75,000 - I have changed it twice since acquiring it and have never observed any rust, etc. Wondering if I should just leave well enough alone or make the switch. I am not due for a change until this summer. I currently change it every other year. Any experiences would be appreciated. THANK YOU, Jeff

Jeff,

You said it best. You are having no problems with the NAPA coolant and use of supplemental coolant additives. Switching to ES Compleat OAT introduces new and not exciting changes. One, you cannot test for the presence of the organic acid content. Two, you cannot even get a reasonable idea of the coolant freeze point whether you use a refractometer and certainly not with a hydrometer. See another post I made on this forum earlier this evening on testing freeze point of OAT coolants.

ES Compleat OAT will protect the engine but you must trust that it is working as there is no real test for the organic acid content. Fleetguard does market a test kit for it. I helped develop that kit but it does not function like their standard test kit, CC2602. There is no reliable laboratory test for that coolant as coolant labs do not know the content of that coolant or the other nitrite-free OAT coolants. Only Shell Lubricants that markets their nitrite-free OAT, Shell Ultra, have a test kit of some sort. I have no experience with it. Testing for organic acid content is difficult enough with laboratory equipment.

On the plus side for ES Compleat OAT will never need an SCA and will only need replenishment of the OAT inhibitors at 300,000 miles. You must be certain to refill with only that coolant. Refilling with other similar nitrite-free OAT coolants will not assure you that you are restoring the protection. There are no field studies as of January 2012 (my retirement date) that showed mixing of these coolants provides the same protection.