Thermochill rad flux cleanup

[Skauneboy]

I'm having the same problem. Before I assembled my loop I went overkill on the cleaning just to make sure no flux was left in the radiator. About one hour of flushing with hot water straight out of the tap, two soaks with 99% Isopropyl, 10+ shake sessions with hot distilled water, 2 soaks with distilled. To no avail I'm afraid. One month after assembly the tubing started to cloud and after six months it was completely white.

I disassembled the loop to try and clean it up. All parts of the loop had a white, powderish film which didn't dissolve with Isopropyl or hot water so I decided to see what vinegar could do. I put a piece of the tubing in a warm vinegar solution and indeed it reacted with the white stuff and cleaned the tubing pretty well. I cleaned the radiator using the same procedure as the first time but also added a vinegar flush since it did such a good job on the tubing. The result? Clouding after one week, completely white after a month

Six months later on I have once again disassembled to make place for some new parts and the white stuff now has company with rust coloured stuff I've used nothing but distilled + one drop of PT Nuke btw and the liquid itself looks fairly clean. The inside of the radiator however, does not. The ends of the tubes have a white film and the end tank is covered by something I can only describe as rust. When I read about people just cleaning their PA's with a few rinses of hot distilled without any problems I can't believe we have the same radiator.

[eternal_fantasy]

Just speaking from experience, I actually believe that it wasn't the flux inside the TC rad that was breaking up and entering your coolant, but actually the biocide/corrosion inhibitor additives precipitation out as it reacts with your tubing.

To give you an example:

I had ordered 2 TC PA120.3, and both went through 30 minutes of hot water running through them. Nothing exotic.
One loop, cooling my 2 VGAs, after running exclusively with Innovatek protect IP, for 3 months, the tubing was clear as it was the first day, with VERY slight yellowing, only visible when compared with new, unused tubing. The tubing used was Innovatek 10/8mm.

The other loop, cooling only the CPU, was a different story. Because I wanted to place the radiator near the window, I had to buy extra tubing as the window was about 3 meter from my PC, and I only had a little of the Innovatek tubing left. so from the Res-Pump-CPU block I used the Innovatek tubing, but the rest was some cheap Alphacool PVC ones. In the same 3 month period, the Alphacool tubing was coated with the white precipitate, and bits of it was floating inside the reservoir, whilest the Innovatek tubing part was clear and spotless. After I had attained some more of the Innov tubing, no more white gunk was seen ever since.

So maybe it wasn't the leftover flux after all. My first rad, a black ICE, ran fine with tygon tubing and all, no white gunk whatsoever, but after a month I was told I needed to add some corrosion inhibitor-biocide, I did, and after a few days the tubing became cloudy...

I really do think the corrosion inhibitors/biocides are coming out of solution, or are reacting with the tubing, forming the precipitate. And once the thickness start to build up, it gets flushed into your reservoir. You can try just pure distilled water, no nuke, no additives, and see if you still get the clouding, or how bad it was compared with additives.

I of course can be wrong, or if you think I don't know anything and are dead set in your view, please ignore this post. However, you may looking in the wrong place for your issue, and are chasing ghost. Good luck, and hope this helps!