L9000 Tandem Dump

funwithfuel said:

Straight L10 300hp. (Good pic shows the engine tag) That's a good engine. Stay on top of your coolant. Maintain your DCA.
Oil sampling will be your best defense. If you start showing coolant in the oil plan on a head gasket. They are simple and strong. You got a good one. Really glad for you.

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Thank you for the info FunWF. We were discussing draining and flushing coolant system then replace with Cat ELC if nothing more than to keep one coolant on the yard - thoughts?

It was probably born with ethylene glycol and DCA. Those materials have coated the inside of the coolant passageways with their own chemical fingerprint. Its easier to shed heat through similar rather than dissimilar chemical coatings. Switching to ELC might be fine with a fresh overhaul, I'd be hesitant to switch mid life. Some folks claim there is no difference, I have changed out quite a few pitted liners where folks believed the "no difference " theory.

Lastly, the early L series were not happy with any ELC, so much so that Cummins issued a bulletin to Navistar back then. If you continue to factory fill our engines with ELC, the warranty claims against cooling system failures will be yours to deal with. This was an across the board statement. It became part of the pre-delivery process, drain and fill with specified coolant and SCA charge. B,C,L,M,&N Series were all listed.

funwithfuel said:

It was probably born with ethylene glycol and DCA. Those materials have coated the inside of the coolant passageways with their own chemical fingerprint. Its easier to shed heat through similar rather than dissimilar chemical coatings. Switching to ELC might be fine with a fresh overhaul, I'd be hesitant to switch mid life. Some folks claim there is no difference, I have changed out quite a few pitted liners where folks believed the "no difference " theory.

Lastly, the early L series were not happy with any ELC, so much so that Cummins issued a bulletin to Navistar back then. If you continue to factory fill our engines with ELC, the warranty claims against cooling system failures will be yours to deal with. This was an across the board statement. It became part of the pre-delivery process, drain and fill with specified coolant and SCA charge. B,C,L,M,&N Series were all listed.

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I decided to go all ELC some years ago anytime a complete coolant change was needed. Cause or not I was changing a lot of water pumps on older equipment. I discontinued that program. Thanks for the other info FWF.

funwithfuel said:

It was probably born with ethylene glycol and DCA. Those materials have coated the inside of the coolant passageways with their own chemical fingerprint. Its easier to shed heat through similar rather than dissimilar chemical coatings. Switching to ELC might be fine with a fresh overhaul, I'd be hesitant to switch mid life. Some folks claim there is no difference, I have changed out quite a few pitted liners where folks believed the "no difference " theory.

Lastly, the early L series were not happy with any ELC, so much so that Cummins issued a bulletin to Navistar back then. If you continue to factory fill our engines with ELC, the warranty claims against cooling system failures will be yours to deal with. This was an across the board statement. It became part of the pre-delivery process, drain and fill with specified coolant and SCA charge. B,C,L,M,&N Series were all listed.

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Was Cummins just against ELC because it was a CAT thing? Just asking, Got a customer that runs Delo red in every thing after a good Cascade dishwasher flush. I've done several Big Cam overhauls for them and didn't see much in the way of liner pits , 0f course some of those engines had seen plenty of green too.
Their theory is too much DCA is as bad as not enough. Better to just leave the ELC alone. I also recall the ISX engines in new Peterbilts came with red in them too.
I don't mean to sound naïve about coolant, just going by what the customer wants. I do run red in my Diesel trucks too. 7.8 Ford, 5.9 Cummins, and my old dinosaur 6.5 Chevy. The Chevy is still on its original 1998 aluminum radiator.

Back in the 90s , they (Cummins) were claiming that the ELC was having an adverse reaction with the seals and gaskets. If there was any truth to that, I don't know. I am just sharing my personal experience. I have no problem with using ELC. I just don't recommend changing in the middle of a service life. After an overhaul, sure. Whatever you want.
I have nothing in writing any longer, just what I remember.

If a person chooses to run ethylene glycol Green and checks the additive and maintains that, is that practice able to produce the result similar to ELC?

This continued use of green coolant (plus additive and test strips and lab analysis) is what I do and make sure all the cans are labelled.


I ask this question about green coolant AND the additive because I have an older ex muni bobtail dump (low miles too!) and figure it was originally built with that green coolant so I don't want to rock the chemistry boat in the oil cooler and the heater and all those low flow passages.

PS When I look at all the "chemicals" (lubes sprays ointments elixirs etc) needed to support equipment, I had to wonder why International (engine) stayed away from the DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) by saying 'we dont want you to have to buy another jug of something'. AND we are supposed to have the MSDS etc on file blah blah.

funwithfuel said:

It was probably born with ethylene glycol and DCA. Those materials have coated the inside of the coolant passageways with their own chemical fingerprint. Its easier to shed heat through similar rather than dissimilar chemical coatings. Switching to ELC might be fine with a fresh overhaul, I'd be hesitant to switch mid life. Some folks claim there is no difference, I have changed out quite a few pitted liners where folks believed the "no difference " theory.

Lastly, the early L series were not happy with any ELC, so much so that Cummins issued a bulletin to Navistar back then. If you continue to factory fill our engines with ELC, the warranty claims against cooling system failures will be yours to deal with. This was an across the board statement. It became part of the pre-delivery process, drain and fill with specified coolant and SCA charge. B,C,L,M,&N Series were all listed.

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Thanks FunWF!

That's what we were thinking simply due to the age. Temp stayed between 175-200 on the 120 mile trip home, sometimes it's best not to mess with it.

We're going to test the coolant to see the quality and back with spec'd fluid. Like ocean bob we're just trying to limit how many jugs and buckets of stuff in the storage shed.