I'm taking my car to the shop this week to have the coolant flushed, as I don't feel it'* within range of my tools or skills to repair lol. It'* sooo ugly, and full of rust chunks. Before that, I will be ripping off the LIM and UIM. Though it looks like the gaskets have been replaced from the outside, I'm not taking the chance of it blowing itself out from anything moving when being flushed. So I'm going to see if I can get a cheap LIM or UIM gasket from autozone, advance auto parts, or napa and see if they will let me return if I end up not needing it. I do all my work at night (10pm or later), so if I tear it apart and it is a bad gasket, I won't be able to re-assemble it and get to work the next day.

Any recommendations? I figured whatever coolant I lose from pulling the UIM/LIM I'll just replace with water since it will be going to the shop within a day to get flushed anyway. Does that sound OK? And what should I ask them to put back in there since Dex cool is apparently evilness? Just something Dex cool compatible?

I moved this to the mechanical issue folder for the '97'* since this is more a standard maintenance question as opposed to brainstorming for additional performance.

The Dexcool compatibale Prestone in the Silver bottle seems to be the general consensus here as a good replacement for Dex (the experts can better advise or do a search for "Prestone" or" Dexcool"...there should be numerous discussions on this.)

My bad... didn't realize I was in P&B until after it posted. Thanks for the input.

My preference is the Prestone "all makes/all models" coolant in the yellow bottle.