care to elaborate richard.. copper or ally ?

i've deffinately seen alot more leaky ally rads then copper.

If copper is more resistant to corrosion than aluminium, does this present a corrosion risk to the block??

In my old xf, some of the hose fittings onto the block were zinc, and corroded quite quickly. I suggested to a mechanical engineer one time I was going to swap them for copper and he said I would be stupid. The zinc fittings were a sacrificial anode to protect the block from electrolytic corrosion. They were MEANT to rust out.

So, with a copper radiator, would the block turn into a sacrifical anode to the radiator? Or are there other fittings on the block which are meant to be the anode?

I'd rather have a sacrificial radiator than a sacrificial block.

I'm not positive about this, but wouldnt car manufacturers have a sacrificial anode that doesnt really do anything? if they even needed them at all.

I know the alloy heads on the falcons can get eaten away, and apparently this can be prevented by using good coolant (anti rust and stuff).

its caused by electrolysis (spelling??) where 2 differenent metals react with the electrolyte ie the cooling fluid...alloy head...cast iron block

Well I couldn't help myself, so I looked it up on Google.

Metals which are more electronegative will corrode first.

See
http://www.answers.com/topic/sacrificial-anode

Looks like copper will still corrode first over iron, from the table below. (Smaller number means will corrode first)



H 3.98
Li 3.44
Na 3.16
K 3.04
Rb 2.96
Cs 2.66
Be 2.58
Mg 2.55
Ca 2.55
Sr 2.33
Ba 2.2
Sc 2.19
Ti 2.18
V 2.05
Cr 2.04
Mn 2.04
Fe 2.02 Iron
Co 2.01
Ni 1.96
Cu 1.91 Copper
Zn 1.9 Zinc
B 1.9
Al 1.88 Aluminium
Ga 1.83
In 1.81
Tl 1.78
C 1.66
Si 1.65
Ge 1.63
Sn 1.61
Pb 1.57
N 1.55
P 1.54
As 1.36
Sb 1.31
Bi 1
O 0.98
S 0.95
Se 0.93
F 0.89
Cl 0.82
Br 0.82
I 0.79