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Post by peterboat on Nov 17, 2017 10:31:25 GMT
Foxy in modern UK we have an electric gadget or we pop the SG reader into it
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Post by Telemachus on Nov 17, 2017 11:02:02 GMT
You can easily measure the antifreeze concentration with a hydrometer or refractometer -the latter is easiest IMO, you can get them from ebay for about £20 and they can also be used to check battery specific gravity. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ATC-Glycol-Refractometer-Car-Antifreeze-Battery-Acid-Engine-Coolant-Tester-G/112636233509?hash=item1a39a48725:g:4bQAAOSwCU1Y3M5jBut the antifreeze strength is not the whole story. The antifreeze does 2 things, stops the coolant from freezing AND has anti-corrosive additives. The latter are important to counteract corrosive byproducts of combustion that can find there way into the coolant. These wear out after a while (either 2 years, or 5 years for the long life stuff). If you don’t change the coolant from time to time you can eventually find your engine is disappearing from the inside out. So I would get rid of all the old coolant and replace with new. To get the coolant out of the skin tank I inserted a smaller hose inside the large pipe to the bottom of the tank, until it reached the tank. A bit like a catheter! I connected that to a spare Whale Gulper pump we have, turned it on and after not very long, all the old coolant was out. When refilling you will parobably have to bleed air out of the top of the skin tank. Some boats have a valve for that. Ours didn’t but I just loosened the top pipe fitting.
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Hot water
Nov 17, 2017 11:05:44 GMT
via mobile
Post by lollygagger on Nov 17, 2017 11:05:44 GMT
You can easily measure the antifreeze concentration with a hydrometer or refractometer -the latter is easiest IMO, you can get them from ebay for about £20 and they can also be used to check battery specific gravity. But the antifreeze strength is not the whole story. The antifreeze does 2 things, stops the coolant from freezing AND has anti-corrosive additives. The latter are important to counteract corrosive byproducts of combustion that can find there way into the coolant. These wear out after a while (either 2 years, or 5 years for the long life stuff). If you don’t change the coolant from time to time you can eventually find your engine is disappearing from the inside out. So I would get rid of all the old coolant and replace with new. To get the coolant out of the skin tank I inserted a smaller hose inside the large pipe to the bottom of the tank, until it reached the tank. A bit like a catheter! I connected that to a spare Whale Gulper pump we have, turned it on and after not very long, all the old coolant was out. When refilling you will parobably have to bleed air out of the top of the skin tank. Some boats have a valve for that. Ours didn’t but I just loosened the top pipe fitting. I'm building up mentally to replacing it all, the boat has suffered a lack of maintenance quite well but I'm betting the coolant hasn't ever been changed. What did you do with the gallons of old stuff?
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Post by Telemachus on Nov 17, 2017 11:49:12 GMT
You can easily measure the antifreeze concentration with a hydrometer or refractometer -the latter is easiest IMO, you can get them from ebay for about £20 and they can also be used to check battery specific gravity. But the antifreeze strength is not the whole story. The antifreeze does 2 things, stops the coolant from freezing AND has anti-corrosive additives. The latter are important to counteract corrosive byproducts of combustion that can find there way into the coolant. These wear out after a while (either 2 years, or 5 years for the long life stuff). If you don’t change the coolant from time to time you can eventually find your engine is disappearing from the inside out. So I would get rid of all the old coolant and replace with new. To get the coolant out of the skin tank I inserted a smaller hose inside the large pipe to the bottom of the tank, until it reached the tank. A bit like a catheter! I connected that to a spare Whale Gulper pump we have, turned it on and after not very long, all the old coolant was out. When refilling you will parobably have to bleed air out of the top of the skin tank. Some boats have a valve for that. Ours didn’t but I just loosened the top pipe fitting. I'm building up mentally to replacing it all, the boat has suffered a lack of maintenance quite well but I'm betting the coolant hasn't ever been changed. What did you do with the gallons of old stuff? Well I just poured it into the ground a long way away from a watercourse. It is poisonous to fish so don’t chuck it in the canal. It would probably be ok down a foulwater drain, bearing mind what it would be mixing with. It’s organic - ethylene glycol - so it’s not the same as disposing of oil.
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Post by Telemachus on Nov 17, 2017 16:45:48 GMT
You can ask at a car garage, or bus garage, if they'll take the old antifreeze/coolant. They change it in the buses anyway, so will have a big vat in which to add your relatively small quantity. I wouldn't pour it into the ground. (Oil IS organic, by the way - just where d'ya think it's come from?) ('Organic Chemistry', anyone??!!) Fuck it. Just pour it into the Cut. At night. Like everyone else does! Yes you are right, oil is organic. But it tends to be harder to break down than ethylene glycol. No, don’t pour it into the cut, it’s toxic to fish! Anyway, what does the garage do with their vat of old coolant? Probably pays someone to take it away, who drives it around the country with the tap slightly open. By the time they get back to the garage, the vat is empty! Or maybe they just go to the nearest cut and pour it in!
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Hot water
Nov 17, 2017 17:22:43 GMT
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Post by thebfg on Nov 17, 2017 17:22:43 GMT
Nicks quite well educated so will be able to further this Or even call it out.
I think although crude oil is organic it's not totally biodegradable. Refined oil may not be at all.
Some oil is recycled as it can be re-refined. Sone is burned off. Dont know about the rest.
Some waste oil such as recycled into fuel.
Is there not some power plants that run on used veggie oil?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2017 18:36:48 GMT
Well, yus, I wuz jokin'. But I am interested in what really happens to waste/rubbish and in 'recycling'. I am cynical and believe the piss-poorly-paid workers who end up dealing with other peoples' shit really couldn't give a toss and just do as little as possible to get their crappy wages. I may be wrong. But I doubt it. I don't know whether to Save the Earth or be like Mugabe's wife and get myself ten diamond rings! I once had a chat with the old boys emptying our local bottle bank - in the days when you used to sling all your rubbish out in a black sack rather than having a collection of rotomoulded bins. He had just finished emptying the last bank into his lorry. The bank was yer standard green, clear, brown set up. The lorry had one big box the lot went into..... I asked him why we have separate coloured bottle banks if it all goes in the same lorry? The reply? 'Beats me kiddo, we haven't got 2 extra drivers and a brown, green and clear lorry, must make everyone feel better for doing their bit to save the planet I guess' After this conversation with the driver I gave up separating it out and just fucked it all off into one bottle bank 👍🍻
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Hot water
Nov 17, 2017 19:04:25 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2017 19:04:25 GMT
Bill Bryson reported similar in one of his books. Is it all a sham? I think yes. It's all going into 'landfill' (old coal mines - just chuck it down the shaft) and when future generations discover the dirty deeds it's all Haha! Fuck You! We're dead! There is no limit to the greed of humans, the one consolation being we're bound to this planet and not free to bugger up the rest of the Solar System. Bill Bryson:- I tried to read A Walk in the Woods, he bored me half to death within the first few chapters, I didn't persevere. As such the rest of his works have passed me by, I remember everyone raving about Notes From a Small Island but couldn't sum up the enthusiasm to try it after the disappointment that was a Walk in the Woods. The only other book I can recall giving up on was John Peel's Autobiography, the first handful of chapters are his and were a good read, then the inconsiderate sod goes and snuffs it leaving the Pig to finish it and get the cash register ringing. I gave up reading it after a couple of chapters of her self indulgent shite.
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