Brown coolant
 

Just ran my engine to running temperature for the first time to burp the coolant and make sure the temp gauge works etc. The thing is that when I added more coolant to the radiater, the coolant came up brown. Now I believe that it is propably just rust and I will flush my system again. At least I'm hoping. It has been awhile sinse that engine has had any coolant in it. I believe oil would have been milky and white. I checked the oil, there was no coolant in it, but did get really dirty for only been running with new oil for a few minutes. I think I'll change the oil again too just to be safe. So do you think it might be rust? It is a light color brown, but isn't really mix with the coolant. It was blochy green and brown.

yeah, thats rust, run the water hose through the engine and radiator

put the plug in the radiator and fill it up, drain it, repeat

also run the water through it without the plug and without the lower hose and through the engine

you can also fill the entire system with water and run the engine until the water gets a little warm and re-drain, keep an eye on the temp gauge then use like 50-50 or 60-40 (more water) when u fill it

Thanks for the reassurance

you asked

After all this work I'd die if I had to tear this beast back apart.

Use distilled water next time: its 99 cents at your local food market.