heater core flush tips/tricks/hints?

[jdwcrw4]

Update!

Putting the Transport on the road tomorrow! Finally sold the Ford Freetyle.

I will need to flush out the heater core, because right now I have no heat. And tomorrow's high will be 9. (Tonight a low of -4 and tomorrow night a low of -11...) I was going to tap into my water heater to hopefully help get rid of the brown/red sludge I can see in the radiator. I assume that someone added Dex Cool at somepoint making the mess.

If you have any hints/tips/tricks send 'em my way!

Chris
'95 Transport SE

[thesam1984]

My tip is to put the car on ramps while filling the coolant. This puts the vehicle at an angle and the radiator up high, less bubbles and fill time quicker... it also compensates for poor design on some vehicles where air can get trapped easily in the motor. It also puts the radiator at waist level so theres less bending for me ( Im 6' tall)

[lemons bob]

Being that I have had to swap back and forth between water and antifreeze a bunch of times. If you want to make sure to empty the full system you can empty the radiator and fill it with water and the from the just disconnect the upper radiator hose and if your hose has enough pressure almost run it indefinitely by replacing the water coming out of the engine with the water from the hose. Run the heater to make sure you get good flow through the heater core. Once the water is clear enough for you stop the car. Empty the radiator and fill the radiator up with pure antifreeze. then just run the car with the radiator cap off and fill as needed. Running it will mix the fluid on its own. And at least with the 60 degree v6 the radiator held just about exactly 50% of the coolant in the system so you will end up pretty darn near perfect 50/50 when done.

Of course with the current weather this may quite suck to do.