pikapp504

Not sure if this should go here or not, but figured I'd post it here and if the mods need to move it, so be it.

I've been battling a problem recently where I'd have no heat, the shop would flush it, have luke-warm heat for a week, no heat, repeat. Well, I've lost complete confidence in this shop so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I watched that video of Eric The Car Guy and he used a "no name" product which turned out to be CLR. I've heard people say not to use this because it eats aluminum, copper and brass but I figured I'd take a chance.

I flushed the heater core both directions about 5x, then poured in a 50/50 mix of CLR and water, let it soak for about 5-10 minutes, then flushed about 5x each direction with water and compressed air. I was surprised at how much ***** came out...considering the shop had just done it a week or 2 earlier. I kept flushing till it was clear water both directions, then blew more compressed air....more brown crap came out. So, I used CLR again, only this time full strength for about 2-3 minutes, then flushed with water and compressed air. And I have to say, my heater is now hotter than the blazes of hell and I couldn't be happier!

While I was in there, I decided to change the spark plugs. Holy ***** am I glad I did! It had what looked like the original Champion plugs from 2000 (I have about 134K miles). I was curious of the gaps so I checked em all and wow....from the #1 to #6 cylinder, the gaps ranged from .055 to .072!!! Yeah, more than DOUBLE what the factory gap should be! No wonder I was getting *****ty gas mileage! I gapped the new NGK's to .035, tossed them in, and wow, the idle is WAY smoother and I can already tell the gas mileage has gone up a bit (I also reset the ECU).

So, all in all, very productive weekend and the CLR flush DOES work quite well. If you're questioning it, don't...just do it and enjoy nice, hot heat. :-)