Originally Posted By: Patman
I think that if you drain and refill the coolant often enough, you never need to do a complete flushing of the system. I find that to be a pain, I don't understand how I'm supposed to collect all the fluid that comes out when doing a complete flush, I'd end up with gallons and gallons of the stuff.
When I did the coolant in my Corvette a couple of years ago, it had never been done before (to the best of my knowledge) and the car was 10 years old. So I simply drained and refilled the rad three different times on three different days over the course of about a week. I figured that got rid of at least 95% of the old stuff. And from now on I'll just do a drain and refill of the rad once every couple of years.
I've also done the same thing on my wife's 2000 Civic since we bought it new.
I agree with this. Such a mess, unless designed for servicability with a true, straight-down drain, like on my diesel MBs.
My only issue with just pulling some out and refilling is if pressure is needed to do anything worthwhile.
So, for the OP, my first question is - is there a radiator cap on the radiator, or is it on the overflow bottle.
If on the radiator, it is really easy. Here is my technique:
-Buy a gallon of coolant and a gallon of distilled water.
-Pour half the bottle of water into a clean container.
-Pour half the bottle of antifreeze into the half-gallon of water still in the bottle.
-Pour the other half-gallon of water back into the anti-freeze bottle. You now have two gallons of proper antifreeze mix.
-Buy a $1 hand-operated plastic siphon.
-Open the radiator cap on a cool engine. Insert siphon and siphon into drain pan or old milk jug. If overflow bottle is separate, drain overflow bottle too.
-(Option): After empty, refill with tap water and then repeat with siphon.
-Refill to full in radiator and overflow bottle. Use radiator funnel and squeeze hoses to get all air out.
-Cap up and drive.
This effort is so clean, you can do it anywhere. Don't pout antifreeze into your kitchenware, but you can even do the antifreeze mixing in your kitchen, since youre only pouring out water. I would recommend using both gallons of solution you made, as you will only be replacing half (or less) just working on the radiator.
But it is easy enough to do once a year, and if the radiator holds less than a gallon, it can really be done unattended. This will keep your systems clean for a long time, and working great. Ive been doing this technique on my 98 Chevrolet truck since new (with dexcool no less) and it is perfectly clean and clear.
