Water pump replaced/orange gel

[froggy47]

I looked at a 96 lt4 yesterday (asking $18,500) 48k miles, very clean.

Owner said he had replaced the water pump & the coolant was gel like.

Am I looking a cooling problems down the road if I buy this? Can contamination result in this gel situation or does it just gel when it hits the air?

Also hood repaired/repainted by dealer. It's a black/grey (love that combo).

What do you guys think on the price? Dealer trade in value looks to be about $14,000.

4 new gsc's

Thanks!

 

[UB2 SLOW]

If you mix Dex-Cool with tap water, it will gel eventually. You will need to flush the system, probably a couple of times, to clean out all the gel.

 

[Interceptor430]

Ah, the old Dexcool gel.
I'd hope it's ok now, hopefully he flushed the cooling system out very well - i.e. drained the system totally and refilled with distilled water, ran engine 15 minutes or longer, drain, repeat, drain repeat till it drained clear water, then replaced it with new coolant and distilled water.

Others may chime in with their thoughts, and the price/value of the car.

 

[KOPBET]

I bought a '96 LT1 with 33k, very clean and none of the problems. No body damage either. Dealer trade, for $18.9.

$18.5 for an LT4 with problems might be a tad high.

 

[mvftw]

Does the Dex-Cool come in 50/50 mixture, if not your saying that you have to use distilled water only to cut it?

 

[Interceptor430]

Dexcool is undiluted, so yes, mix it 50/50 with distilled water.
There are many threads on this subject.....run a search and enjoy the reading.

I think the story was 'GM traced the dexcool gelling prob was caused by the factory using tap water instead of distilled water'.
This was a few years or so ago, and mostly in the trucks, best I can remember.

I used to mix tap water with the green stuff in all my cars...and have never had a problem, but heck, distilled water is only 79 cents a gallon, so I've started using distilled water with the Prestone. (I will not buy/use dexcool, but to each his own).

 

[mvftw]

I agree, I won't start using it, but I have it in my new Trailblazer. When it needs toping off, I'll have to buy distilled waterad