Cleaning cooling system

[Steve_S]

My '46 A had been sitting outside for a long time with an open cooling system. The cylinder head was literally packed solid with actual dirt. The upper water pipe was rusty but the rest was just hard dry dirt that I had to dig out with a chisel and hammer. Strangely, the dirt does not soak up water very well so it also doesn't wash off very well. I had the radiator boiled, replaced the upper pipe, cleaned the lower pipe and flushed the engine / head with a hose as best I could. But there is still some dirt and debris I can't get to and that brings me to my questions.

First, I'm thinking of running a cleaning solution through it. Can I assume radiator cleaner would be safe? Or is there a better option?

Second, I have everything clean except for the block and head. If I run the engine, is the thermo-syphon effect strong enough to lift debris up into the radiator top tank? If so then I'm considering putting a mesh around the radiator inlet to block it, and after a while pull the hose off to clean any loose stuff out.

Advise or ideas on the best way to proceed are welcome!

 

[Glen D Anderson]

(quoted from post at 15:34:23 04/02/16) The cylinder head was literally packed solid with actual dirt. The upper water pipe was rusty but the rest was just hard dry dirt that I had to dig out with a chisel and hammer.

First, I'm thinking of running a cleaning solution through it. Can I assume radiator cleaner would be safe? Or is there a better option?

Second, I have everything clean except for the block and head. If I run the engine, is the thermo-syphon effect strong enough to lift debris up into the radiator top tank? If so then I'm considering putting a mesh around the radiator inlet to block it, and after a while pull the hose off to clean any loose stuff out.

Advise or ideas on the best way to proceed are welcome!

I can't see the circulation in any cooling system, let alone the thermo-syphon design, being enough to remove any amount of solid / packed contamination. Any type of chemical that could possibly be used to loosen the crud would likely have negative affects on other components in the cooling system.

Seems like disassembling the engine to either have the components hot tanked(caustic solution) or physically cleaned by pressure washing or sand blasting would be the only effective way to clean the system.

FWIW