Outer Limits 4x4 Board

have just dropped my radiator coolant (just for the sake of a change of coolant) by pulling off bottom hose.

seemed like plenty came out (~15ish litres)

now when i went to refill it i have only gotten about 3-4 litres of coolant concentrate in so far and its not going down. think there must be an air trap somewhere? how do i get around this?

oh yeh GQ TD42

Try putting a funnel in the top of the radiator & fill with coolant then start motor & keep topping up coolant. You need to get top & bottom hoses hot so you know the thermostat is open.

Kyle

+1 with tuff mav,

i'v used the top of a 1.25 litre coke bottle as the cap end fits nicely into my rad, and just cut the bottom bit off so its like a funnel.

make sure u run the car for abit while ur toping it up and check top and bottom hoses get hot so you know your thermostat is open and the water is flowing around.

you may as well change the thermostat while your at it. there cheap insurance to change it, just make sure it works before you put it in. just boil the kettle and dip into the boiling water and see if it opens up. a thermostat should be around $20 off my head.

You did drain, and flush out the old coolant from the block, rad, and heater core as well didnt you, as if you mix different coolants, you often get some pretty bad results of mixed coolant that takes on the texture of thick snot, and blocks up the rad.

does the block have a drain plug in the side of it as well??

Trains

Definitely flush the whole system (heater core, block and radiator) thoroughly wwith clean water. Old coolant loses its ability to stop corrosion and you can end up with some serious damage over time. Simply draining and refilling with fresh coolant isn't suficient.

yeah two important points there. im not sure about patrols, but with hilux's u just take the bottom hose off or undo the drain plug on the radiotor and undo the heater hose on the fire walll and jam a garden hose down there and that will flush the hole system out. but then again im not sure if you can do this with patrols.

yep there's a block drain bung at the rear of the motor underneath the exhaust manifold just above something else. It looks like a stud sticking out of the block rather than a bolt.

Definitely undo this. It might be a bit rusted. There's a lot of crap at the back of the block which you can't flush out with just a hose through the thermostat housing.

And yeh, disconnect the heater core lines and shove a hose up them, flush out the core. From both directions.

I had green coolant flowing from mine for about 10 minutes even with the hose shoved down its neck.

I chucked in rad cleaner/flush run the 4wd for 15mins till the temp needle is around the normal type driving temp, turn off the motor.

Open up the 2 drain plugs let everything drain out.

Get the water hose, put it into the rad opening, leaving 2 drain plugs open.

Start up the motor, this really pushes all the rust and shit out the motor, you'll be quite surprised at how much shit can be in the rad system, I've done 1 car and was flushing for a good 3-4 hours before I got a 100% clean run of water.

anyway, I fill up the rad with water pull the hose out and let it drain out a bit then put the hose back in, with the motor running, I don't let it get much over mid temp on the gauge, fresh clean water straight from the hose will keep the motor cool even while drain out the whole time.

Once you have clean water coming out for a decent amount of time 15mins or 1/2 hour, pull the house out run the motor to push all the water out the system turn off before it's completely empty you don't want to over heat the motor.

Close up the drain plugs, refill with straight concentrate coolant, then fill up with de-mineral water. (don't want the rad system rusting out)

I don't bother with the mix as the more ethylene glycol you have in the system the better it stops rusting but will give slight less cooling but I've never had any over heating at anytime, after the 4-5 times I've done this now on a motor, For a top up I simply use the de-mineral water or top coolant pre-mix.

Just keep an eye on bubbles and crap by running the motor without the cap on so all the bubbles come out, takes a week or 2 to level out the rad system but works great and hopefully no over heating problems again.

Anyway, that's what I do takes ages to flush out etc properly but worth the tine I think.

cheers