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Just a couple more anecdotes - nothing scientific...
A little over three years ago I went on a flushing binge, putting the Dex-cool by Havoline in everything. Everything then was three NA 240s. A year or so later I began reading some of the scary stuff about its eating gaskets and solder joints - even aluminum on 960s I think? Just left it in, no problems.
Then I had a sudden-loss-of-coolant experience, thankfully not catastrophic, where the thinnest portion of the paper water pump gasket seemed to have dissolved to mush. Red coolant squirting out. Ahh - blame the red coolant, because of course I did excellent work installing that coolant pump.
Red coolant got booted from that car, but I believe my practice of coating the gasket with red silicone, and too much at that, was the reason, not the coolant. I think now the gasket slid out of place while tightening such that only a small amount remained between the pump and the block. It lasted a year and 20K miles before breaking.
Then I read (Steve Ringlee kept a close watch on this topic) something authoritative sounding to the effect that the red coolant was really designed to be compatible with modern cars and not recommended for older cars. So I've just been using green stuff since, but still have red in two cars, well past the two year flush time.
I see traces of it around the expansion tank pressure cap, but other than that, no problems.
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Art Benstein near Baltimore
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