Thread: Removing coolant from the engine

I should have a jack and stands or even ramps but I don't. And I don't want to go to mr lube. I need to flush her from above, my plan was to unbolt the thermostat housing and remove the lower rad hose, and flush it out that way by pouring water from the top thermostat opening, will that flush the coolant from the engine it out? The rad is the easy part. I was gonna disconnect the heater core hoses as well and flush them? Does that about do it?

you on the right track.

the way i like to do it is to , pull the lower hose, drain the rad and engine via that way, then remove the t stat, put the housing back on, then take the upper hose off the rad.

fill and flush the rad while the lower hose is off, then put it back on, push the upper hose down to a bucket, fill the rad with a hose, leave the hose on, now fire up the engine, run it till clear clean water comes out the top hose, then turn off the hose run the car till no more water comes out the upper hose.

put the t stat back in, put the upper hose back on, then dump one gallon of straight antifreeze in the rad, ( not the 50/50 pre mix crap) then top off with water, let it idle till the fans come on, rad cap off, top off as needed while waiting for the fans to come on, once the fans come on the t stat is wide open, bleed it now. top off if needed cap it, your done.

then flush it, seal it back up, add the cleaner, drive it, then re flush it again.

Prestone sells it by the gallon, use that. I prefer using a garden hose to flush, it will move the water much faster than the water pump ever will, and force contaminants out of the system. I do the radiator, block, and heater core separate at full city water pressure.

If you're even more serious, do that and fill the system with all water minus one gallon, use a gallon of Prestone cleaner, and put it all together and drive with that cleaner and water for a week, then flush again and use pure antifreeze. Of course in temps 32°F +

theres no sensor to remove to drain, but there is a rad drain plug, dont mess with it, most of the time it breaks.

letting it pump out the upper hose will clear all the coolant and crap from the engine for sure. it should even flush the heater core, but you can pull the hoses off the engine and hose flush that if you want, a good old back flush of the core is ok too.

Yeah just remove the hoses/t-stat. Often stock, or more likely aftermarket radiators have a drain plug that gets stuck, and I always leave them in that case.

Edit: is there an echo in here?

Man I have got to make a write up on this... flushing with a garden hose is the most efficient way, you can get 100% of the old stuff out. Anybody want a flush?

if you have the time you could always remove the radiator and lay it flat fill it with the flush stuff and then put it upside down and do a reverse flush just in case anything large was stuck in the upper side and didn't make its way down to the lower side of the radiator.

when i replaced my radiator i was shocked to see a few pieces of grass that was between the AC and radiator that was unsee otherwise.

a good way to clean the fins of the a/c core there and the rad is simply spraying it from the bumper side with de greaser. then hose it from the engine side out, you'd be shocked what comes out of some cars. especially after 10 years plus on the road.