Rich164

My coolant was rust colored so I decided to flush it today. I placed a flush port on the heater hose going to the engine. I flushed it until water coming out of the radiator ran clear. However, the engine would not heat up at all with the water hose on. Does the engine need to stay hot to get a full flush? I added prestone cleaner and will drive it a couple of days and flush again. Any advice is appreciated!!

Klutch

If you're pumping cold water into the cooling system it won't heat up. That's normal. Drive a couple of days with the flush chemicals. That should allow it to get hot. Then remove the thermostat and reinstall the housing. Flush it thoroughly without the thermostat. Likely, you'll see more muck come out. Install a new, high quality thermostat with a new gasket and some sealer. If the overflow bottle has any crud in it, remove it and clean it before you add coolant. You don't want to suck any of that stuff back into the cooling system.


I like to add a bottle of Water Wetter to the coolant. It makes the radiator, as well as the heater core, work a little more efficiently.

2000chersport

You can remove the thermostat for the flush. That's what I do

Fred/N0AZZ

When you flush the system you also need to set the heater on high heat to open it all the way so it can be flushed also. What type of cleaner/flush did you use before you started flushing, and you do need to remove the thermostat............




Better yet go back and do some reading on cleaning/flushing your cooling system, you will gain a lot of knowledge about how to do so properly.

Rich164

Thanks guys, prestone coolant flush and cleaner

Rich164

Yes, thanks Fred, reading is what led me here hoping for the significant advice. Do you remove the drain plugs from the engine block? This is typically not mentioned in discussions.

HappyTrails

Or at least I am hoping to be at the end of the process.
Will follow suggestions in this thread, but I have a few questions...

Does it do any good to remove the engine coolant plug on the lower front right side of the block, or does the chemical flushing do the job down that low? What have you guys seen come out the hole when the plug is removed? Anything really bad?

Also, I bought a HESCO high flow pump and thermo housing, and 195 degree t'stat to install. Already replaced the fan clutch last year. And the radiator is a wide dual core installed about 4 years ago (crash repair). Also the electric fan is one of the new fangled spiral blade type.

I have no present cooling issues except on 100+ degree days in slow traffic or going up hill.

Last question: How difficult is removing the trans coolant line from the radiator? I understand such connections come in two types and need some sort of gizmo to make quick work of it.