Ok after many searching i have decided to tackle the cleaning of my Coolant Bottle. This will best a test of what works best and what doesn't work at all. I looked at some of the most common responses and trialed the follow methods

Water & Stones, Shake For 15 minutes
Water & Salt/Sand Shake For 10-15 Minutes
Low Grade & Medium Grade Bleech
Degreaser & Shake then add water and try some more !
Pool Hydrochloric Acid, let sit on both sides (Available At Clark Rubber or Any Good Pool Store)

First, how to take off your coolant bottle
1)Wait for the car to cool so you dont burn yourself (common sense)
2) Disconnect all 3 Hoses (One Under Bottle, Two to the left)
3) Undo all Three Bolts (two on the bottom, one on the top)
4) Remove Bottle

Then mask of all holes except for the top one

Results
Acid: First i used the hydrochloric acid and this stuff is dangerous but its only pool grade so it was ok, after sitting it on top and bottom (with cap on and all holes masked) it had done alot of work to the bottle, this stuff worked great but should not be touched with your hands or make eye contact.

Stones & Water: worked ok when i tipped all the water out some dirt surely was moved but the fun did not end as getting the rocks out is the hard part.

Salt & Water: Doesn't Work, made no difference

Degreaser: It was fun to shake but did not help anything

House Hold Bleech: Using about half the Coolant Bottle with bleech (all i had) and mixing with water followed by a good shake did make a difference, it helped remove alot of dirt but was hard to get rid of once i was done.

After all the time spent i did like the result i can see the Coolant Level now without taking the cap and i should be able to get a picture up soon (i did take shots of all of this in action, but my memory car $#!t its self. Also there are many methods out there i just used what i could.

Conclusion:
Best Method: The hydrochloric method was the most effective but the bad thing was that it burns are is a health hazard.

Most user Friendly: The Bleech or Stones and Water would have been what i would have used if i could not get my hands on any hydrochloric acid.

Nice work mate. +1 for tech doc

good work..
you can also use a small diamiter chain and shake the s**t out of it..
the good part is you can hook the chain with a bit of wire and pull it out.. without the stress of trying to get the rocks out..

just another option:

I cleaned my Serge tank with "spray and wipe" it can be purchased from bunnings about $10 (1 litre bottle consentrate) I used a 1/4 of the bottle and filled the rest with water and let it sit for a couple of days gave it a good shake, I did this for a couple of weeks...

this is an old pic but it shows how it came out...

Good work ...I tried cleaning mine over a period of a week, gave up and bought a new one with new sensors.

You can use Caustic (NaOH...for the chemical minded people, also called Extrant), that s**t removes a lot of crap from anything...I would suggest xylene based products...however that s**t is carcinogenic.

phong =P~

Awesome stuff, ill have to give it a try. How much is the acid?

Mine didnt come out that clear, i can now see the coolant on the side but the top it still pretty misty maybe if i had let it sit in the hydrochloric acid for a day then maybe i would have gotten those results, but my car is my daily driver so i needed it asap ! Atleast i could experiment for the tech document

Edit: the acid was about $15

I use a chemical that i use at work on the mall's tiles called Punch acid based
Tile plus works well too

Hey,
What is the white stuff on the EL throttle rubber tubing?

Like your work on narrowing this problem down peaandham, just one question did you use a different coolant bottle(x5) for each remedy or was it the same bottle used in each application??? Cause if just one bottle was used wouldnt the outcome be a bit misleading?????

I only used the one coolant bottle but it was easy enough after a good rinse to see if that method had any effect !

I dont know, powder from its mold maybe, it was on there when I got it from the wreckers, and just never bothered to clean it off..

Hey mate,

Great tutorial, i used

Hydro - Acid,
Petrol,
Misc. Detergents

i have included before and after photos, this process took me about 4-5 hours but well worth it..

would have liked to get all the dirt and grit out of it but managed to get 90%

thanks very much for all the advice on your tutorial very helpful...

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Those results look pretty good guys, i should give it a go on my EB's. All 3 of them have dirty bottles, my daily isn't so bad as i've cleaned it with rice & water once before. Got a lot of crap out of it but it still looked old & crusty, but i could just make out the coolant in it, before that effort i couldn't see what was in it, if anything lol.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Clr, calcium ,lime ,rust.It cleans em up good and tickles your hands too