VRII using coolant

[muney]

hey guys..im new to this forum and i have a smallish forum..ive just bought a VR series 2 wagon and when i recently checked the coolant it was all rusty water..so i flushed it out with the hose pipe and detaching both the upper and lower hoses to the radiator..filled her up with 5 litres of pre mixed coolant and off i go..anyway i checked the coolant 1 week later and the coolant is still rusty..the level of coolant has gone down somewhat and the temperature gaugel always sits below a quarter..it takes a while to get there when its cold also..anyone got any opinions on what i should do..mind you 5 litres didnt get me very far...just enough for the radiator and not the overflow reservoir..
cheers

[markovr]

The rusty water is what the coolant looks like that has the factory cooling pellets put in the water.
Thats how the factory set up is supposed to look....brownish
They are there to act as a sealant and a lubricant for the water pump .
You add the prescribed amount of coolant and then crush up the brown pellets and add them too ...so much per initial fill up and then per particular subsequent services to the coolant.
They will put a film of brown on things in the cooling system and probably take a lot of flushing to get it all out (if you wanted it out) since they tend to go to the bottom of the radiator tanks.
When you fill up the cooling system from empty you have to open the bleed screw to make sure all the air is expelled from the system and even then it is necessary to top up the coolant after the next trip to the right level.

[muney]

can someone else confirm that the coolant colour in the radiator be brown instead of green??? ive replaced my coolant twice and after a while it goes brown again..its so frustrating cos it seems as if the radiator is rusty...also should the v6 be using coolant at all?? my oil seems fine. i.e no coolant in oil

[2_SeeK_U]

Should you use coolant in a V6? Yeah, follow the coolant lines and you'll see where it goes, l don't know what purpose it serves ( l know it "cools" something, just don't know what) but l'm pretty sure its better for the car to have it in !!!!

[Zues]

Hey Thread,
Dude i would go down to your local mechanics, get your Radiator pressure tested. This will let you know if it is leaking somewhere in the cooling system, i have read a few times around that that browness can indicate that maybe one of your gaskets could be split Eg. head gasket split from inside and coolant/water could be burnt during compression and you would never notice that it was leaking from the outside, only seeing coolant levels drop weekly. Check all your hoses. recently had same problem with my VR, my heater tap was buggered and last week it sh*t itself, coolant everywhere - very messy. but after that was replace the system was pressurised and browness disappeared. So my guess would be a leak somewhere in the system. That may be the problem, it may not. i Just thought i would chuck my thought in. Good luck finding the problem, i know how anoying the cooling system is.