Blue_Thunder

iTrader: (1)

First off mods, feel free to move this to the faq thread or make a sticky. If this has already been covered I apologize.

How Flush Your Cooling System

First off just flushing your radiator is not enough when you blow a head gasket or intake gasket and get oil and coolant mixed together. I have seen the common answer of just flush your radiator several times and you show be good. To me that is a waste of money spending on coolant. The best way to flush the Whole cooling system is by flushing the block as well. Its not that hard. Here are the steps I have done and it works great.
First get a water hose/garden hose,(everyone should have one), You will need a T-connection for the hose and some hose adaptors incase your garden hose is bigger than your upper heater core hose. Unhook the upper heater core hose and t in the adaptor and hook the heater hose back up.(make sure the t-adaptor has threads on it so the garden hose can screw on). Next take of the upper radiator hose and leave it disconnected. Turn on the water hose and flush the block. Periodicly pinch off each side of the heater hose so water goes threough the block and through the heater core. Flush untill all you see coming out of the upper radiator (make sure the water is not coming out of the upper radiator hose) is clean water. You have now completly flushed your cooling system and engine block. Now grab half of the required amount of coolant that your car requires, make sure its undeluted (straight coolant unmixed). Do this because you will still have a lot of water in your cooling system so all you need is straight coolant to get the 50/50 mix. Now just bleed the cooling system and you should be good to go.

irockid86

what do you do with the water that comes out of the engine? do you just let all the coolant and water run into city drains or in to your yard? the biggest problem with flushing coolant at home is disposal of the crap that comes out. any ideas on what to do with the waste? i dont mean to attack you and i am sure you have a good idea on how to prevent contamination, just give a few details on this!!!

Blue_Thunder

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, when we do it at work our drians are seperate from the storm drains, we have our own drain system, It will be hard to not get all the coolant everywhere but you might want to try and putting a very very large drain pan under your vehicle, Its best do do this in your garage because you can contain the mess and use a shop vac to clean it up.

Ozz1967

iTrader: (4)

Go to Sears and get a Coolant Exchange done. I work there as my second job and the machine does a 95-100% exchange by sucking the old coolant out and then forcing new coolant in. We only remove the radiator cap to drain your radiator below the upper hose so we can uses your upper radiator hose as the entry point. Also, very slim chance to get an air bubble this way. Pretty quick too. Another way is to drain your radiator completely using the petcock and then install one of those inline flush points in your upper heater hose. Then open your radiator cap and turn on the hose. When the water runs clear out the cap hole, your entire system should be pretty clean. Then you just drain it from the radiator and add your 2 or so gallons of antifreeze.