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Posted: 6/25/2020 5:30:40 PM EDT
I was topping off the radiator in my Jeep CJ5 with some bottled water.
He came over and said water from a hose or tap will ruin your radiator cooling system by plugging it up. I told him he’s crazy. I’ve been topping it off for 30 years with a hose or tap water. It’s never had an issue like overheating or anything. I do regular maintenance on it. He says I should use distilled water to top it off. Or have a shop do it. What says the certified wrenches in GD? |
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Likely he is confusing the radiator with a battery that is not sealed. They should technically be filled with battery acid but distilled water will work in a pinch if not much is needed.
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Start pissing in it and tell him to fuck off. A little black pepper and a healthy few pissins have gotten me back home a couple times.
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Technically distilled water is better because no minerals to cause eventual problems. There are things in modern antifreeze that helps prevent these problems though. I would keep doing what your doing.
You get bonus points for owning a CJ 5. Respect. |
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Any non-purified/distilled water is bad for a heat exchanger.
Bad enough to cause you problems? Who knows...it’s a jeep. |
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Ummm its a CJ5, like 30 years old, if it hasn't been ruined in 30 years by now, not sure tap water is going to do it, lol
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Depends
If I had city water I might do it from the tap. My water now if I fill a bottle of water from the hose after a couple hours the water is red and there’s all sorts of shit at the bottom. I can’t even fill my kids kiddie pool with it, I have to put one of my 275 gallon totes in my truck and fill it at a friends who has municipal water |
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Quoted: Quoted: Start pissing in it and tell him to fuck off. A little black pepper and a healthy few pissins have gotten me back home a couple times. WOLVERINES! And then punch him so hard his shoulders touch, as suggested above. That guy is out of his mind trying to tell you something. |
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Quoted: Tell him it's not an iron. View Quote Get ready for "What's an iron" ? |
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He's right Distilled water is better than tap water . But I used to use tap water in my 75 CJ . Hell I used creek water and lake water in that thing also .
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He's correct you should be using distilled water for the cooling system.
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This guy is a douche, but he has reasonable advice for how you should have responded.
Jeff Goldblum Clarifies Name Pronunciation |
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LOL, tell him to go visit any shop/dealer in the area and watch what they put in it..guaranteed it comes out of a hose hooked to the local water utility.....
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City water? fine. Using well or spring fed water.... I wouldn't make it a habit
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Quoted: Likely he is confusing the radiator with a battery that is not sealed. They should technically be filled with battery acid but distilled water will work in a pinch if not much is needed. View Quote incorrect. the correct amount of battery acid is added to the battery when it is initially serviced. if, when checking the levels, you find a cell is low, you top off with distilled water, not battery acid. the water evaporates/boils off, not the acid. you are restoring the missing water when you top off with distilled water. |
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Quoted: what's dissolved in your tap water? View Quote You don't get an annual report from the city or test your own well? My tap water has about 140-160 ppm and the water company gives me a complex break down of this and that. I drank Navy tap water while sitting 50 to 100 feet from a reactor core most of my career. I'm immune. You gotta check your water. Especially if you have children or anyone in the family has bad enough health issues. Flint Michigan was a real thing, not the first, not the last, and not the worst case. |
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Neighbor was right.
Distilled water goes in vehicles unless it's a shit box you don't care about. You don't want that crusty white shit you can feel under your faucet in your cooling system. |
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Quoted: It's a Jeep. It comes pre-ruined from the factory. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes FPNI Quoted: Technically distilled water is better because no minerals to cause eventual problems. There are things in modern antifreeze that helps prevent these problems though. I would keep doing what your doing. You get bonus points for owning a CJ 5. Respect. Agree with the parts in red. |
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44 years of tap water in your Jeep? Damn, it is going to burst wide open any day now! Any day now!!!
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Ive used any water i can find in a pinch.
I buy premixed or mix with distilled when changing or topping off. Ensures you have the correct ph. |
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Quoted: Depends If I had city water I might do it from the tap. My water now if I fill a bottle of water from the hose after a couple hours the water is red and there’s all sorts of shit at the bottom. I can’t even fill my kids kiddie pool with it, I have to put one of my 275 gallon totes in my truck and fill it at a friends who has municipal water View Quote Why not just get a water softener ? |
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distilled water is better, but tap water is better than no water.
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They say distilled water is better... but lots and lots of people, myself included, have used tap water.
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I guess that if you dont have hard water its fine.
One time i stopped on a very lonely road cause a trucker flagged me down. His rig overheated so i took him to a stock tank that was a couple miles away. Filled the old cooler i had in my pickup and got him going again. He didnt seem to mind putting that water in. |
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Tap water is full of minerals. So it is conceivable that scale will develop in the radiator over time. Of course, given that this is an old vehicle, you probably need to worry about rust more than mineral buildup. On the bright side, radiators are relatively cheap.
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When I worked at the dealer and did a coolant serivce....1 gallon of coolant....the rest from the shop hose
You’re fine OP. |
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I Just use coolant or tap water or a mix depending on application
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Did they even have anything but tap water when the CJ5 was made?
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It greatly depends on the quality of the water from your hose. If you have a lot of iron or calcium in your water, then yeah, that could cause some long term loss of cooling efficiency, as those contaminants accumulate in your water jacket and radiator. Some minerals can also increase damage from galvanic corrosion in your cooling system, and interfere with the corrosion inhibitors in your coolant.
Distilled water is like 70 cents per gallon from the grocery store, so why even risk it? Unless you are going to trade in every 3-5 years, in which case you probably aren't changing coolant anyhow. |
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The neighbor is technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.
I wouldn't worry about it though OP. |
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