The side bar conversation on the Toyota quality issues and other automotive related issues are fine with me, but lets please leave out the personal jabs to one another, it's very unbecoming and adds nothing to the conversation.

Now I will take off my proctor hat and try to go warm up as it's freezing here in Princeton, NJ!

Regardless of mix or scheduled maintenance that anyone wants to promote or use, the most important scheduled maintenance is to check the coolant with a mid range to good quality hydrometer EVERY YEAR!.

I do it every Thanksgiving. Shoot for -30 F. Will let it go if it's good to -15F or lower.

Just as a point of reference that condenser number (RR174) was already in the Parts X-Ref here on the website and listed for 53 Delco applications. Sometimes the information is closer than we think!

Thats good Information Dave. I never knew that. But I figured there was a point of diminishing returns.

Hi All. I called up the NAPA store the next town over (the one here in my town is as helpful as a politician). The number I was given for the Delco system is: RR 174. From what I could see in Owen's post (kinda hard for me to read it), it appears to read RR 134. Perhaps this is the "new" number. The guy I spoke with had to dig out a "parts manual" to find it. God help us, it couldn't be found on the computer! At least he was able to find it (and was old enough to know how to use a book). Anyway, there it is. Hope it helps! Thanks guys,

Scott

Brian, you bring up an interesting situation with Chrysler/Iacocca and Crosby. I read his book, the company I worked for in the early 80s handed them out to the employees. I actually read it, and agreed with much of what he said. Unfortunately quality and zero defects is something Amerian management likes the idea of, unitl it costs money or slows down the line, which no one can stand for. Your comments about Chrysler needing (then) a complete management change-out if they intended on living this is absolutely true. There is a real "slam it together" culture in Chrysler plants, Walt made his name in the auto industry taking Buick from a carriage shop to a production powerhouse, he was doing this while Henry Ford was still trying to find gentile bankers to loan money to him, and much of the Ford Highland park's production organization was pioneered by Walt, and many others, it was just taken to a scale unheard of before by Ford.
Crosby asserts that they guys on the floor assembing your product know good from bad, they know when parts don't work together and managers have to listen to this. There's a big problem there, obviously.
In the end, it pretty much resulted in some nice banners being made and hung in our shop, and that's about all, anything that constituted real quality just took more time than the company wanted to commit to, designs that would have to be reworked (time=money, always).
When I called on plants where our equipment was installed I noticed that GM plants had lots of "right way, wrong way" posters with very clear line drawings of how a main cap should be installed on an engine.
Ford had, at that time (early 90s) the most impressive set-up. They took SPC very seriously. One location We had an installation at was the plant in Belleview MI that manufactured alternators, it went Visteon and I think is closed now. They had a line where the alternators came together, there were 19 steps in a circular line, beginning with pressing bearings into machined housings, and on down the line until the finished product was stacked on pallets at the next station at the end of the line. off to the side was the QC station for that line, a QC inspector was metering samples, measuring shaft end play, running alernators on a test stand to measure and record their output, and so on. The had histrograms of their faults,
and were "walking the walk". The thing I was most impressed to learn there was that the QC guy was one of the workes from that line--that day. On a 19 man line they had 20 employees assigned. Every 20th day YOU became the QC guy, they all did QC in rotation. This ended the "them vs us" mentality, and gave each employee a hand in the process, the problems and the solutions.
Chrysler had some nice machines, but a lot of it was dog and pony show.

Kev, there are two factors to consider. First, the greater the percentage of ethylene glycol, the poorer the heat transfer.

Second is the actual freezing point depression. Mixtures of ethylene glycol and water do not form a straight-line relationship to freezing point; at one specific dilution with water, the freezing point depression will be maximized and at either side of that, the freezing point will rise again. The 50/50 mix is close to the maximum freezing point depression that can be obtained. In other words a mix of 70% ethylene glycol will have a higher freezing point, not lower, than 50/50.

A similar situation exists with blends of Tin and Lead to make solder. As you vary the percentages, somewhere there is a minimum in the melting point, with higher melting points on either side. These are often called "eutectic" mixtures.

Call me nuts, but has anyone considered this Toyota thing as maybe an inside job? A bad line of code placed by a previously disgruntled employee? Somehow I just cannot fathom its a total error. I could if the throttle was mechanical, but they're all fly by wire now.

Toyota has not become the largest American car manufacturer by taking risks, or by accident. they have.made consistent "safe" choices with models and yearly improvements. Just take a quick scan of their line up and you'll find nothing exciting. not a single car invokes any feeling of emotion except knowing there's a warrenty behind the contract.

But in thinking, I can't.think of any other manufacturer that's exciting nowadays. So I guess we're screwed on our new cars.

Another option is to just call a local sign painter or pinstriper in your area. I am sure they would do a good job and it shouldn't cost that much.

I would be curious to see if the car overheats on just straight water. I knew a gal at work that filled her car up with straight anti-freeze and never could figure out why it overheated. Remember it's anti-freeze, not anti-heat. Anything more than 50/50 mix is too much unless you are in the Arctic circle. IMHO

Obviously the main reason for anti-freeze besides changing the freezing point of the coolant is to prevent prevent rust from forming.