Someone really should to a test with some waterwetter, and find out if the good parts of it go with the color. I can't see any reason why they would add a separate coloring to something meant to be dumped into a car's cooling system, so I kinda figure that it is the protective substances themselves that give it the red color. Hence if the color goes away / gets absorbed by something, you lose the corrosion protection.
My system is now VERY slowly getting clearer and clearer again. If someone can think of some test that will show the concentration of the good parts of waterwetter in a system, I'll see if I can't get a sample of coolant from my system, and compare it to a sample of my original mix (which has been sitting in a sealed plastic jug since I mixed it at the start of my cooling project - I made 4 liters, and have a LOT left, 3% watterwetter + distilled water).
As was shown fairly well in a thread a while back (yes, I don't post much, I've been lurking for a long time) the waterwetter causes a black coating to form on copper surfaces, which the people who did that test concluded to be a protective layer that prevents oxidation and galvanic corrosion. I believe that this is a chemical reaction between the copper and the waterwetter, which uses up both chemicals and results in the black protective layer. The tests done before had a small piece of copper in a tub of watter-wetter mix, whereas I have a LARGE surface-area of copper, and a relatively small volume of waterwetter. I believe that my waterwetter is reacting with the copper in my system, but that my ratio of copper:waterwetter is enough that I simply used it all up. Perhaps whoever did those tests way back then (if they still have some extra copper and waterwetter) could put a piece of copper in a solution of waterwetter but with a very small amount of waterwetter relative to the surface area of the copper, and after waiting for the protective layer to form attempt to estimate the remaining concentration of waterwetter in the solution.
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