Anybody used "Water Wetter"?

[Ritchie6]

Just been talking to a mate and telling him about my recent purchase of a Stag and that I'd just drained and flushed the radiator and replaced the coolant. He then went on to tell me about a product called "Water Wetter" from Redline and I wondered if any members had tried it or had any knowledge of any benefits to be gained. I have to say up to press I've no overheating problems but was just curious. I checked in the SOC archive and there was a short discussion on this topic 10 years ago but no definitive answer or follow up reports. Any thought anyone?

Richard

[jonfey]

I've never used this personally, so I'm not entirely sure how this works.

My understanding is, and I'm more than happy to be corrected, that it raises the temperature at which the water boils. If that's correct, then my concern would be that if certain materials within an engine ( I'm thinking cylinder heads ) distort at a given temperature in any event, does it really matter whether the water is actually boiling or not?
Aren't the heads suffering in any event whilst the water is on its journey to boiling?

As I said, more than happy to be corrected.

[wilf]

It is a surfactant, i.e. It lowers surface tension. The theory being that the water then better picks up heat from the internal metal surfaces.

It won't work in combination with anti freeze - it is a USA frost-free state product. I know a few big block users who use it in the likes of Texas or Ca.

[Danny]

Hi,

I have not used them and after reading various reports I would not. Here is one article, http://www.oilem.com/potential-issue...gine-coolants/

Each to their own and I do know some that use it in their TR's

Danny

[jagorstag]

It is a surfactant, i.e. It lowers surface tension. The theory being that the water then better picks up heat from the internal metal surfaces.

It won't work in combination with anti freeze - it is a USA frost-free state product. I know a few big block users who use it in the likes of Texas or Ca.

Thanks wilf for that clarification! I did not either know what this water wetter lark is for, so nice learn something new, and also to learn that it's not anything we need to worry about...

Cheers,
Joakim

[Lingen]

Richard.
From what I have read on line, this is a product is a wetting agent. That is to say, it reduces the "Surface tension" of water, which allows it to make better contact with metal surfaces, for instance. The other properties of "Water wetter" seem to be more than covered by a good quality antifreeze, so I think it is unlikely to make any difference in your Stag. The claim that it will make it run cooler is unlikely, as the temperature is controlled by the thermostat. If your car is always overheating, you could give it a try, but I think it would be a better idea to find out why!
Mike.

[jonfey]

Interesting. Clearly, nothing whatsoever to do with reducing boiling points etc. Not sure where that came from !

Just looking around there's another one called " Radiator Relief" which it says is 100% compatible with all coolants. States " Run Up To 30% Cooler "

[StagJonno]

Snake oil comes in loads of guises. They're all guaranteed to












Empty your wallet

[Guest]

The only wetter (wetting agent) I have ever seen used was in black and white photography.
It was supposed to be of use if you used ordinary tap water for wash, instead of distilled or rain water.
You added a few drops to the developing tank.

I never saw any difference on the negs cos in any case they always ended up having stains on after being hung up to dry.

TBH between the stop bath and the fixer I reckon most of it was BS,- the biggest jump in quality was using good film and paper!
Then of course in them days we through all the chemicals inc the silver dilute, wash out down the drains when we had finished....right down the plug hole eh?!

Yet another quality control lesson learned when I was a kid...

Don't believe 'alf of what you read, and if nobody else wants to do it,or can do it, do it yourself!

[trunt]

It is a surfactant, i.e. It lowers surface tension. The theory being that the water then better picks up heat from the internal metal surfaces.

It won't work in combination with anti freeze - it is a USA frost-free state product. I know a few big block users who use it in the likes of Texas or Ca.

Its fairly common over here in the USA, I used it in the summer months on my Turbo Mini, and of and on on the TR250. Reading the blurb It does say it can be used with Glycol but the point of it is that pure water is more efficient than Glycol at moving heat so you can add this to "just" water and it has the rust and corrosion inhibitors that would be lacking, plus the surfactant properties to help transfer the heat better.

Only used it a couple of years, no problems and it helped out until I sorted out the cooling system.



Terry

[Ritchie6]

Richard.
From what I have read on line, this is a product is a wetting agent. That is to say, it reduces the "Surface tension" of water, which allows it to make better contact with metal surfaces, for instance. The other properties of "Water wetter" seem to be more than covered by a good quality antifreeze, so I think it is unlikely to make any difference in your Stag. The claim that it will make it run cooler is unlikely, as the temperature is controlled by the thermostat. If your car is always overheating, you could give it a try, but I think it would be a better idea to find out why!
Mike.

Hi Lingen
fortunately I don't have any overheating problems,well at least I didn't before draining and refilling the radiator but having taken the car for a quick blast down the road all seems ok and the temp gauge still shows about 11 O'clock.
No, I was just curious about this Water Wetter stuff as I'd previously never heard of it. It's 20 years since my last experience of running classic cars and it seems there's so much that has changed it's a bit of a minefield what with synthetic stuff and new improved high tech products it's like learning about cars all over again

[Guest]

If Keith Duckworth were still with us.....
I can imagine his expletive ridden comment that would come out...

A friend of mine once shared a railway carriage compartment with him on a return trip from London to Northampton.
He said it was wonderful, an eye opener!

[trunt]

Richard.
From what I have read on line, this is a product is a wetting agent. That is to say, it reduces the "Surface tension" of water, which allows it to make better contact with metal surfaces, for instance. The other properties of "Water wetter" seem to be more than covered by a good quality antifreeze, so I think it is unlikely to make any difference in your Stag. The claim that it will make it run cooler is unlikely, as the temperature is controlled by the thermostat. If your car is always overheating, you could give it a try, but I think it would be a better idea to find out why!
Mike.

It works, if only because pure water is something like 15% more efficient at transferring the heat out of the engine to the radiator and out of the radiator to the air, but as pointed out if your engine is running at the set thermostat temp then it will make no difference as the efficiency is sufficient, even with antifreeze.

Where this comes in is if the cooling system is below par and running too hot, it may help to keep it down a bit until you can sort the real problem out! Thats where I used it on the Mini, in the 90-100 degF temps I see here most summers it helped until I sorted out an auxiliary radiator and intercooler to improve my cooling.

I have also just found out that that Ethylene glycol is more efficient than propylene glycol, who knew, but it seems that most are ethylene anyways.

[Guest]

It works, if only because pure water is something like 15% more efficient at transferring the heat out of the engine to the radiator and out of the radiator to the air,

I remember working on a proton synchrotron in student holidays.
Magnet cores were cooled with vast arrays of pipes using demineralised water....no "water wetter", and outside was a whole cooling tower to dissipate several hundred MEGAWATTS.

The machine when it was running consumed the entire output of a dedicated pilon line from Didcot power station....so much so it needed a 10 ton flywheel and a dynamotor dedicated to stabilising the enormous currents produced in the magnet core.
(we spent a whole summer cutting up 5000 tons of slightly radioactive copper segments to....BURY THEM!)
The copper alone was worth millions.

Did you ever hear of "wetter water" used in any F1 engine?

Pretty much sums it up eh?

[trunt]

I remember working on a proton synchrotron in student holidays.
Magnet cores were cooled with vast arrays of pipes using demineralised water....no "water wetter", and outside was a whole cooling tower to dissipate several hundred MEGAWATTS.

The machine when it was running consumed the entire output of a dedicated pilon line from Didcot power station....so much so it needed a 10 ton flywheel and a dynamotor dedicated to stabilising the enormous currents produced in the magnet core.
(we spent a whole summer cutting up 5000 tons of slightly radioactive copper segments to....BURY THEM!)
The copper alone was worth millions.

Did you ever hear of "wetter water" used in any F1 engine?

Pretty much sums it up eh?

I work on water cooled medical stuff and yes, no water wetter, but no Iron blocks either (keep in mind It also has the needed anti corrosion chemicals) On the outdoor stuff we use glycol but they design them for such use, e.g because of the lower efficiency of glycol they are oversized accordingly.

I agree, on the water wetter hook, but it does have a use.