Methanol substitute to prevent freezing?
 

I've just had a separate baffled tank made up, in the trunk, as a water source but it has been fabricated out of aluminium, which rules out the use of methanol (even at low concentrations I think). The question I have is can anyone recommend a substitute I can use to mix with the water in the tank, for the primary purpose of preventing the water freezing (both in the lines and pump) during winter? I would like to avoid using screenwash as the antifreeze as I've read it may not be very good to inject that in large volumes into the engine. Thanks.

http://www.aquamist.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1062

The pump will survive 5% ethanol and 25% isopropanyl.

Greetz,

Janis

Thanks Janis, it will have to be isopropanyl I guess, due to the aluminium tank which you saw the pictures of. :(

Hope that stuff is easy to come by.

That tank does indeed look awesome.

But I for one don't know whether a 80/20 Water/Methanol mixture is corrosive enough to ruin the tank.
Can anyone comment on that? Or did you already found that out?

Janis

If you have a local place to do it you could also get the aluminum tank anodized and that would solve any corrosion worries. Hard anodizing woud be best but one of the normal color anodizing works also. I have anodized aluminum fittings in my system and they were unaffected by a high methanol mix that made very short work of plated steel fittings.

Larry