Dirty coolant

[MalcolmV8]

My 2000 Explorer v8 had been sitting in a barn in a junk yard since about September of 2000 and had collected a lot of dirt. I think some animals may have lived in the water jackets and built some mud nests or something. I flushed out the water jackets with the garden hose when I first got the motor and lots of mud and muck came out. After I got the truck running I pulled the radiator and ran a hose through it and all kinds of mud and dirt came out. I also ran the hose through the block with the engine running. The water came out brown for a while and then cleared up.

Now a few thousand miles later I check on it again and it's as though a whole bunch more dirt came loose. The mud or what ever it is has caked itself all over. Radiator cap, overflow bottle etc. It comes off but you have to scrape it with your nail. I did the garden hose flush again but just looking into the radiator hoses I can see they are still lined with crud. I can rub my fingers in there and pull off chunks of the stuff. You can't even see through my overflow bottle any more because it has a brown coating on it. I pulled the overflow container and flushed it with a hose for a while and suddenly big chunks of mud fell out. Almost a handful.

Anyhow I put fresh coolant in and sure enough it only took about one drive and color is already a dirty brown but still translucent. I'm sure within the next few weeks the color will go solid brown again. Man I'm not sure how I'll ever get all that out.