| Author | Message | ||
     Surfsofa |
My SX (~1200 miles) has no coolant visible in the coolant reservoir. Yes, I'm nervous. Going to investigate over the weekend and am wondering where to find deionized water, as advised in the user manual. Where did you find yours? | ||
| Terrys1980 |
Distilled will work the same and can be found everywhere. De-ionized is expensive and usually only available from chemical suppliers. | ||
| Snacktoast |
Agree, distilled will work fine. | ||
| Steveford |
I don't think you need it but I'm told that Culligan (Hey, Culligan Man!) sells reversed deionized water which a lot of the vinyl (stereo) guys swear by. | ||
| Surfsofa |
OK, this was a classic case of spending too much time on the internet researching things, rather than just starting! Turns out the coolant I bought for another bike is the correct type and is ALREADY mixed with water. Doh! My reservoir was empty, but radiator was not, so hopefully topping up the expansion tank was all that was needed. For those with the service manual, I tried the procedure where you start the engine with the radiator cap off and wait for the thermostat to open so that circulation begins and air can work its way out, but the level of coolant rose quite quickly, so had to shut off before the thermostat started. Hmmm. | ||
| Stevel |
Actually, deionized water is easy and inexpensive to make yourself. If any of you use Brita water filters, they are filled with a 50\50 mix of crushed and charred coconut shells mixed with plastic resin balls. Both of these are available through aquarium supply houses in bulk. To deionize water you do not need the charcoaled coconut shells, you only need the resin balls. You can simply do an eBay search and find many venders that sell these plastic resin balls. Distilled water is not deionized water. Distilled water is demineralized pure water, but may or may not be deionized. It's a crap shoot. Using distilled water is not what you need. You can never keep your cooling system demineralized. The cooling water will pick up aluminum particulate in short order once in use, so don't even start with pure water. All you need to do is run the water though these resin balls and all the calc ions will attach themselves to the resin balls and will be removed from the water. Now, here's the thing, these resin balls are very fine and messy. You have to captivate with a very , very fine mesh at both the entry and exit of the filter canister. So making a special filter can be a real PIA, but in the volume you need, just use a Brita water filter. You should modify the filter cartridge by drilling a hole in the side of the filter and dump all the stuff inside out and refill it with these resin balls and your done. I use one of these tapered plastic hydraulic fitting caps as the plug. Simply drill the cartridge to the center diameter of the tapered plug for a snug, leak proof plug. One cartridge will easily deionize at least 20 liters of waters. (5 gallons) Each cartridge will accept about 200ml or slightly less than 1 cup. | ||
| Reepicheep |
If that's all true (not saying it isn't, I don't understand the chemistry), why not save yourself the grief and just use the brita filter and container and be done with it? Filter the water twice if you are worried about the 50% less resin ball ratio. | ||
| Stevel |
Bill, Sure, you can do that of course, but you're not drinking the water so the activated charcoal adds no other value than just taste. The resin balls are cheap and you can make a lot of de-ionized water with a 5kg bag. I've been recharging my Brita filters now for many years and it does save significant money. I use a lot of filtered water for my coffee machine and it prevents calcing totally. | ||
| Hughlysses |
To deionize water you do not need the charcoaled coconut shells, you only need the resin balls. You can simply do an eBay search and find many venders that sell these plastic resin balls. The charcoal neutralizes the chlorine in the water. Chlorine will render the resin ineffective. I don't know if it's instantaneous or if it just reduces the life of the resin. At any rate, I was involved in the design of a couple of industrial water purification systems and we always included charcoal (technically "activated carbon") upstream of the resin beds. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Neat information, thank you both. |
