Flush Cooling System

DucatiRdr said:

I literally JUST finished doing this myself. Here's what I did:

What you need:

2 gallons of your favorite antifreeze. I used Peak only because Danica Patric's pic was on the bottle, but they are all the same IMO.

5 gallons of distilled water.

Access to a garden hose

10 gallons of container storage to collect the discharge. Dumping this into the ground or sewer is horrible and should be something that keeps you up at night.

With the engine off drain the radiator into a container. The petcock is on the passenger side of the radiator near the bottom. Open it up and let 'er rip. Close the petcock and fill the radiator with the garden hose. Start the motor and idle with the radiator cap off until the thermostat opens up. Re-open petcock and drain until discharge runs clear. Until this point all of the discharge should be collected and recycled. After this there should be only a negligible amount of coolant in the system.

With the engine still on and petcock open flush by keeping the radiator full with the hose. Every so often you should rev the engine a few times so the water pump circulates the water around. At this point there should be nothing but tap water in the system. Shut engine off and let radiator drain to empty.

Close petcock and fill radiator with distilled water and start the engine. Keep draining and refilling the radiator until you use 4 of the 5 gallons. Remove the 2 fasteners and drain the overflow tank. Once you get to this point, close the petcock and refill with a gallon of antifreeze. Start the engine and rev a few times to mix things up. Wait a minute or so then test. Keep draining and filling with antifreeze until you get a good mix. Button things up and make sure the petcock is tight and call it a day.

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