Evening all, just looking for some good window cleaner ideas to get vaporized coolant off in an efficient manner. My heater core bit the dust over the summer (when I wasn't running the heater and thus didn't discover the issue at hand as early as I would have preferred) and when it first started getting cold, when I ran the defroster on the windshield, rather than clearing off the fog, it did nothing but add to it except the new fog was in the form of vaporized coolant from the leaking heater core.

I know its a core issue because if I run the HVAC on the lowest temperature setting, there is no smell (though much to my dismay, running it in that configuration doesn't do anything for defogging the window) but as soon as I bump it just one degree higher than "lo" it instantly reeks of coolant. I've also been having coolant disappear from the reservoir, though with no drips in the driveway. As some might suggest, this could be due to a small leak near the block, but the rate I'm losing coolant doesn't match up with a leak that would be small enough to not cause a drip so I'm pretty confident its the heater core (though I don't have any leaked coolant inside the cabin, at least that I can see so there's a small margin that I am wrong, but the lack of smell at the low temp setting has me pretty convinced otherwise)

Anyhow, I've ceased turning the HVAC on period (which sucks cuz its been cold as bawls here the last couple days) to prevent further build up of vaporized coolant on the windows, and I've got the part ordered and scheduled for delivery Friday, right in time for the weekend so I can tear out half of my interior to do the replacement but I still have the problem of the preexisting coolant on the windows which makes visibility ridiculously difficult between the fog of the coolant and the added fog of water vapor that I can't defog without running the HVAC.

I've tried a variety of automotive specific window cleaners, as well as kitchen degreaser and vinegar and all that did for me was smear around the coolant (making visibility even worse) and leave a pungent smell of vinegar in my car, and now I'm at a loss of what else to try to remove this stubborn substance :/ any ideas? Maybe some chemistry majors will chime in and tell me a nice chemical that will bond with the variety of chemicals in the coolant and thus make it a precipitate that wipes off a lot easier? lol

Much thanks in advance

 

According to the bottle of G12 sitting next to me, it contains ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, sebacic acid, sodium hydroxide, and water. Not only can i not pronounce any of those words, I don't know what any of that stuff is. That said, maybe this will help you figure out how to get it off your windshield?

 

Easy way but is going to stink a bit. Bottle of alcohol use to 1st whip down all the windows and take you time. Once that is done fill up a spray bottle with vinegar. With a new rag clean the windows using it. Squeegees are the way to go with the vinegar if you have a small one. That should take care of it. Let it air out when done and toss an air freshener in your car!

 

Was thinking about it a bit more, I'd also stay away from anything even remotely abrasive. I dunno how hard the windshield glass is, but I'm sure you don't feel like betting a $250 replacement on it...

 

Depends

Are you using Vista or 7?

 

Actually you can use 000 gauge steel wool on glass. It'll take off the residue (along with glass cleaner) and can remove small nicks in the glass from flying sand-type debris. Try the stuff above along with the steel wool and your windshield will look great.

 

You lost me Doc.

Jeremy, good info, thank you! I have some kind of scale on my side mirrors, I may have to try that steel wool trick on them.

 

there's a general principle in chemistry, that 'like dissolves like.' So, try wiping it down with something oily, like glycerol (you can buy at the pharmacy) and then some detergent to get that off. Vinegar's acidity is what makes it a good solvent for cleaning sometimes, but I don't it won't do the job here b/c ethylene glycol isn't acidic. It's the same reason that after eating something spicy, water doesn't take away the pain: that's because the spicy stuff (capsasin) is oily, you'd have to eat something fatty or drink something with alcohol to absorb the capsasin.

Or I've used Simple Green to take care of my coolant spills. Simple green seems to be doing a decent job, but that's on the concrete floor, so I can't say it's getting everything off for sure...

 

Awesome info guys! Thanks

What kind of alcohol? Rubbing alcohol? Denatured alcohol? Ethyl alcohol? I have access to all three so I'll definitely give this a shot. The vinegar didn't do much the first go, but I didn't wipe it down with any form of alcohol first so that could be why so I'll try it again.

Linux, actually. Vista's a royal PITA and I haven't had any extra money lately to upgrade to 7 so I switched to a better OS that didn't cost me anything but about 20 minutes of my time to build

Great suggestion, I'll definitely give this a shot too; if anything on the outside of the windshield as it very much looks like I drove through a sand storm in Iraq right now so I'll give it a shot to get the residue off on the inside and then do the same outside. Slightly unrelated, but could I use it on headlights too? My headlights are caked with the yellow gunk of time and hard water deposits and so far, no amount of headlight restorer stuff has come close to even slightly taking it off.

Ah, now I see the flaw in my thinking. I was thinking along the lines of an acid-base reaction to get it off and whereas the ethylene glycol, as far as I know, is more basic, an acid like vinegar seemed like a good choice to neutralize it, but I hadn't even considered just dissolving it so I'll try out the glycerol/detergent idea if the steel wool, alcohol, simple green and/or more vinegar don't do anything. I have all of those things so I'm going to try them first and hope for the best before spending more money I don't have on the glycerol idea (unless its only like, $2 for a bottle of it lol)

In all though, I really do appreciate all the suggestions; I'll report back on which one I discover works best for all of your future references in case anyone else runs into this same issue and needs to know how to get coolant off windows

 

I don't see any reason why you couldn't use it on the lights as well, since they're glass. What we've found that has worked as well on the lights of several cars is using rubbing compound and a high-speed buffer, set to a low RPM so it doesn't burn the compound into the lenses. Also though, the lack of success in clearing them could mean that the hazing is on the inside of the lenses - I've seen that in the past too.