TLDR - when you get a new radiator delivered to you, stick a garden hose through one end and run a lot of water through it, to make sure it is clean and free of contamination. I didn't do that, and after install, had a tonne of small bubbles coming out in the expansion tank as well as the bleed screw (see pics), which didn't look normal.
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Think I saw a thread where someone was having trouble getting bubbles out of the cooling system.
After initial radiator install (before flushing), car wasn't misfiring, not overheating, heater blew hot air, no white smoke out tail pipe, no unusual behavior except for tiny almost soapy looking bubbles in expansion tank and out of the bleed screw.
Initially I didn't think of radiator being the culprit and possibly contaminated, so I thought maybe after last track season head gasket between piston and coolant jacket let go. So I first tested the head gasket via a kit you rent at oreillys to see if there are combustion gases in coolant (liquid starts blue and turns yellow if it smells combustion gases in expansion tank). Heart rate was a bit elevated during the test, because who knows. Then thoughts of cracked head, block, etc started running wild in my head. Just replacing the head gasket is the easy part, haha. Test came back negative. It was quicker/easier to do this test vs getting a car apart and set up to do a proper full flush, so I did the combustion gas test first.
I then decided to empty and flush the radiator and block with a garden hose, since there was nothing else that I introduced to the cooling system except for a new radiator and distilled water. After draining the block and radiator and running a garden hose through the radiator, some somewhat soapy water kept coming out from the radiator and took a little while with a garden hose to fully flush out.
This was Genuine BMW radiator from FCP. I'm not sure if Covid qa is lacking these days, or this was 1 in a million, but caused a bit of extra work.
Thought I'd share.
Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
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Think I saw a thread where someone was having trouble getting bubbles out of the cooling system.
After initial radiator install (before flushing), car wasn't misfiring, not overheating, heater blew hot air, no white smoke out tail pipe, no unusual behavior except for tiny almost soapy looking bubbles in expansion tank and out of the bleed screw.
Initially I didn't think of radiator being the culprit and possibly contaminated, so I thought maybe after last track season head gasket between piston and coolant jacket let go. So I first tested the head gasket via a kit you rent at oreillys to see if there are combustion gases in coolant (liquid starts blue and turns yellow if it smells combustion gases in expansion tank). Heart rate was a bit elevated during the test, because who knows. Then thoughts of cracked head, block, etc started running wild in my head. Just replacing the head gasket is the easy part, haha. Test came back negative. It was quicker/easier to do this test vs getting a car apart and set up to do a proper full flush, so I did the combustion gas test first.
I then decided to empty and flush the radiator and block with a garden hose, since there was nothing else that I introduced to the cooling system except for a new radiator and distilled water. After draining the block and radiator and running a garden hose through the radiator, some somewhat soapy water kept coming out from the radiator and took a little while with a garden hose to fully flush out.
This was Genuine BMW radiator from FCP. I'm not sure if Covid qa is lacking these days, or this was 1 in a million, but caused a bit of extra work.
Thought I'd share.
Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
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