Cleaning Water Blocks,Radiator, Pump, and Tubes

I'm not sure the correct way to clean the water kit (Rads, Pump, Water Blocks and Tubes) before I put it in. I heard from someone I need to boil distilled water, and drown all the items in a bucket for a little bit so it won't develop any algae in the loop. Anyone have any tips on cleaning a kit?

I'm thinking I'm gonna go straight distilled water (with couple drops of petra pH neutral biocide) instead of colored coolant, I hear its better than dyes and coolant in carrying heat away from components. Any truth to this?

why do you feel like you need to clean them out? have you seen gunk in there anywhere? if youve been using biocide then it shouldnt be a problem unless youve gotten some pollutant in there and you can see stuff built up. i know ive seen the insides of water blocks get pretty nasty, so you might wanna open that guy up and clean it out with some boiled distilled water. pump can be the same way. i can take the top off of mine with 4 screws and clean inside it in no time at all. however, if you can see inside your res and tubing and they look ok then id say dont worry about it. if they have a greenish tint or something, clean them out, or just get new tubing. if your water block and pump look fine, then i think you can assume the radiator is too. is they have gunk in them, then the rad is probably just as bad and yes you should put it in some hot distilled water. make sure to tip it sideways and all over the place so that the water gets in all parts of it. the best way would actually be to hook up the pump to it and a pot of hot water and actually run the hot water through it. can be complex and make a mess though.

Assuming you've just bought these parts you should definitely clean them.

The radiator is usually the dirtiest one. Running hot water through it should be enough [hot tap water will do, no need to waste time boiling distilled]. Just install barbs and ~10 cm piece of tubing and stick it in the tap - 1-2 mins of hot water should be enough. Distilled should be only used for flushing it after you get all the serious dirt out of it [2 times is probably enough]. You can use some detergents if you want to be extra safe but getting all the bubbles out might not be easy :/

Tubing should require no additional cleaning but if you really want to just run some tap water through it and flush with distilled once.
Same for blocks - disassemble and wipe if needed.

Pumps are rather clean too - just remember to keep all electric parts dry.

Tap water is a bad idea here in Florida and there's a higher salt content from the tap. I'll probably boil some distilled water the pour it into the hole, slosh it around a bit and pour it out. I didn't even know I could open the pump, I'll try that. They are brand new parts but I hear horror stories of improperly washed items that had leftover machining dirt from the factory ending up in their loops.

Like was previously said, the radiator is what needs to be cleaned out. What I did to clean mine was fill it up about 1/2 or 2/3 of the way with very hot tap water, cap it shut with the little caps that came with it, shake it like crazy for a couple minutes, then pour the water into a clear glass. Repeat that process until the water comes out perfectly clear, do it a couple more times to be sure, then do it twice more with distilled water to make sure anything extra in the tap water was out.

For cleaning tubing, I just ran hot tap water through it then rinsed it with distilled a couple of times. I also rinsed all the waterblocks with hot tap water, then did a couple of distilled rinses. Seems to have worked well for me.

foxtrotniner said:

I'll probably boil some distilled water the pour it into the hole, slosh it around a bit and pour it out.

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I'd recommend that you DON'T boil distilled water!!!! As you can get it over the normal boiling point (212 F) since there are no impurities it will violently boil when it gets an impurity. I'd hazard a guess that when you pour it that it would probably react in a similar manner. Check out this video from Mythbusters in 2007 as a reference...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_OXM4mr_i0

YMMV but I'd err on the safe side.

Bob

foxtrotniner said:

I didn't even know I could open the pump, I'll try that.

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it doesnt look as easy on newer swiftech pumps. idk what you have. my mcp600 was simple and i can actually rotate it to 4 different positions every 90 degrees depending on how i want the outlet to point relative to where it mounts on the case. pretty cool.

Best product to clean your radiators is the following:

-boiling distilled water
-Prestone Super Radiator Flush

1) boil the distilled water, fill radiator halfway, then fill remaining with Prestone Super Radiator Flush.

2) shake like hell.

3) let sit for 30 minutes.

4) repeat until 22oz. bottle is empty.

As has been said before, don't boil distilled water, since it has no impurities, it can explosively boil and give you nasty burns, and you don't want to mess with water burns, they can be very very bad.

I'd be worried about using the tap water here. Def. hard water and causes calcium build ups. Not sure if I would boil it and then use it. Need to clean my loop since I am redoing it soon.

What about using vinegar?

I've been told that vinegar may cause damage to copper, but w

With an aluminum radiator, it would get the buildup of 4 years out of there pretty good right?

What about alcohol? Any opinions on that?

dealmaster said:

As has been said before, don't boil distilled water, since it has no impurities, it can explosively boil and give you nasty burns, and you don't want to mess with water burns, they can be very very bad.

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I've boiled over 10 gallons of distilled water, never see a violent explosion.

Your statement is asinine...

When I first get my rad, I use tap water to rinse out any flux, then use distilled. Doesn't really matter if I have a teeny amount of tap water in there left over.