My coolant reservoir is disgusting!

My car is about to get to 90K miles, so I was looking in the maintenance thing to see what all needs to be done. I was kinda curious as to how to drain the coolant reservoir, so I go out to look at it and the thing is just about empty, and has a bunch of disgusting black stuff on the bottom. I don't drive but about four miles to and from work everyday, and I'm going to change out the coolant this next week. Temp gauge is always a hair below the middle mark when it warms up. Should I maybe wait until I change it to actually pour more in there? I don't want more of that nasty stuff getting into the system.

[mattski]

I would wait until you change it this weekend, take out the reservoir and rinse it out.

This sounds like something that needs done on mine. Is there a how to?

[wawazat??]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you may have head gaskets on the way out. Mine was skanky like that before I changed the gaskets. Now its clean and sparkly!

Just something to think about

Todd

[Earthworm]

you've never used any sort of radiator sealant have you?

Previous owner did that to mine and it ended up sort of plugging the bottom of the reservoir...it would fill easy but would drain slow.

Originally posted by wawazat??
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you may have head gaskets on the way out. Mine was skanky like that before I changed the gaskets. Now its clean and sparkly!

Hmm, well I'm not sure, I think it might be in some way related to the fact that there basically isn't much coolant in the reservoir (it's at about the level of the hose coming in towards the bottom). But I'm not sure. I'll look in to it, I s'pose

[Earthworm]

The reservoir is actually quite simple and easy to remove. Shouldn't take you long to clean out.

If you have a bottle cleaner it would help to clean out any crusty buildup.