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The cooling system in a nutshell, works just like your battery, although in a very, very tiny reaction compared to the battery. Electroloysis takes place and voltages are produced as the metal ions are expelled from their metallic parts and electroplated to other more grounded parts of the cooling system.
As I mentioned, in a perfect cooling system, this cannot take place, since there needs to be some conductivity and corrosion already within the cooling fluid. That's why it is important to not only use a good grade of coolant with scale inhibitors (like Volvo, worth it's weight in gold!) and distilled water, not tap water, or DiH2O. Once you clean the cooling system the inhibitors coat metal surfaces to prevent metal ion transport. It starts immediately when you put in new coolant, and only lasts as long as the clean/flush is good, and the water & coolant can be found with minimum conductivity.
There is charcoal filters you can get which remove the metallic content from tap water, but pure distilled water is best. I should also note that DiH2O is a highly reactive and corrosive water, and because it is de-ionized, it will accept metal ions from other sources to achieve a chemical equilibrium, and will actually increase the rate of oxidation and corrosion compared to tap water
Jiggling the probe may only re-position and dislodge the metal ions that are attracted to the probe tip, which is a ground and acts just like the internals of the radiator and cooling system metal parts. The probe is in-itself an electrode of the electroplating system that is your cooling system.
Also the rate of flow within the cooling system will increase or decrease what is called cavitation, which is the process of bubbles created within the cooling system by turbulence of the water pump at or near boiling point. The turbulence converts oxygen and hydrogen from the water, and the gas increases the corrosion effect, which increases the metallic content of the coolant. This is why you need to be very careful to keep bubbles out of the system, and keep the pump speed to normal speeds from the manufacturer, i.e, not use an overdrive pulley, etc.
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