killa4lyfe

I have a 98 civic ex and when i took off the radiator cap i see brown stuff on the inside. I tried to flush out the system and it still comes back. Does anyone know what it is or how to fix it?

Ruben19

r you using coolant?

trustdestruction

You sure it's not oil?

If it is... blown head gasket.

1992Si

If it is oil, your one of the few that has gotten oil into the coolant. I'd be checking for a crack in the head or block.

What does your oil look like ? a light brown kind of milky ?

waaBAAH

could just be very old coolant. it breaks down over time and might pick up some corrsion or gasket material causing a brown like appearence.

also could be tranny fluid if you have an automatic.

could also be from teh previous owner putting in some sort of radiator stop leak stuff or another additive.

and like stated above..could be oil from head gasket to crack block

but first thing is first.. gotta flush it out. your on the right path. but how are you flushing it out? if your just draining the radiator your only draining out some of the coolant and if it is gunked up in the neck of the radiator the chances of it being gunked up everywhere are very likely.

you will almost never get teh color distortion out of your resovoir but each drain and fill might and will get rid of some of that brown gunk stuff.

keep draining it and refilling it.. it should get lighter if you dotn have a problem.

1992Si

You can buy a flushing kit with a T that is cut into a hose and you connect a garden hose to it.

waaBAAH

ughh i hate this machine ^^^ lol. you would cut the heater hose and install the mentioned part. messy yes but it does have good power to "flush".

i beleive you would need a vaccuum on the raditor neck along with clamping either direction from your "T" to get the fush correctly.

JSPECSIR

it is rust. have it flushed asap or flush it yourself. once you flush it you may dislodge particals that will jam into the water pump and cause failure. be prepared for this. once its all cleaned out fill it with new 50/50 premixed coolant. this happens when someone fills your rad. with regular tap water and the outside of your cylinder walls and water jackets begin to rust and corrode. it will also cause the metal to weaken and break where all the coolant hoses hook to engine.(think sunken ship type metal damage) this happened to a d16z6 that came in my ej1. i kept trying to flush it until **** ruined the water pump that had about 20,000 miles on it. i just said f*ck it and put a b swap in there. even if you do that you will need to flush the heater core out before hooking up the heater hoses to a new engine.

deadazleep

mine had somethin like this aswell, almost looked like dirt. Was told it was old stop leak or somethin so i flushed the radiator and motor and cools better than before and no more brown gunk