Tomorrow will be my first time attempting a coolant change. My vehicles are a 2009 Jeep Liberty and Saturn Aura. The plan is to drain coolant, fill with distilled water, drain again, and fill with fresh coolant. Do I need to be concerned with leftover distilled water in heater core and engine block or just refill with 50/50 mix and be on my way?
First Coolant Change
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You can flush it pretty easily with your garden hose, truthfully. No need to waste distilled water on flushing. Some coolants actually don't need distilled water and will take advantage of the minerals in your municipal water, unless yours is extremely hard.
Just get close to 50/50 and enjoy the rest of your weekend. No need to stress over the exact mixture (you can safely run 40/60 up to 60/40).
Just get close to 50/50 and enjoy the rest of your weekend. No need to stress over the exact mixture (you can safely run 40/60 up to 60/40).
I do the distilled drain and fill on my vehicles, except i do 5-6 drain and fills with water to get the system down to almost all water. Only doing 2 drains isn't going to get nearly all of the coolant out and your are wildly guessing at the % of AF/Water.
Once i get the system down to all water i take the system capacity without the overflow tank and add half of that in pure antifreeze and top off with distilled til full. I drain the overflow tank and premix my own 50/50 to fill that.
While you can be off either way 10% you may be much further off without getting the system to pure water first. You can do this with a garden hose too but you still need more cycles than that to achieve the desired goal.
Once i get the system down to all water i take the system capacity without the overflow tank and add half of that in pure antifreeze and top off with distilled til full. I drain the overflow tank and premix my own 50/50 to fill that.
While you can be off either way 10% you may be much further off without getting the system to pure water first. You can do this with a garden hose too but you still need more cycles than that to achieve the desired goal.
If that liberty has the 3.7 you must remove the thermostat to completly drain it since the thermostat is in the lower hose. Also there is an 8mm allen 'bleeder'in the upper pipe near where the upper hose connects onto the engine.make sure to follow the correct bleeding procedure so you dont burn the engine down.if you dont pull the stat you will only drain the radiator which only holds a few ounces.
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Why not just do a drain and refill? The units are only 5 years old. Unless they've been excessively topped up with cheap antifreeze or tap water I don't see how they could be anything other than sparkling clean inside.
If you cannot get the block drains to loosen, remove the bottom hose &/or thermostat to get a more complete drain just like Chris142 said.
I would use G-05 in the Jeep and Dexcool in the Saturn.
If you cannot get the block drains to loosen, remove the bottom hose &/or thermostat to get a more complete drain just like Chris142 said.
I would use G-05 in the Jeep and Dexcool in the Saturn.
I drain the block and the radiator. Then I flush with well water. Drain again.Close system. Then I add straight antifreeze. Hopefully, I can get in half of the cooling system's volume.Then I top off with water. I have a tester and I'm happy if 4 balls float. I dont get over heats and bad leaks. I keep a jug of 50/50 to top off with in the trunk. You wanna do a final rinse with pure water,it wont hurt. A 50/50 mix gives optimum protection and enough lube for the packing in the water pump.
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