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Complete Coolant Flush DIY Proposal, Need Your Wisdom

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  #1  
Old 05-25-2010, 10:41 PM
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Default Complete Coolant Flush DIY Proposal, Need Your Wisdom

Complete Coolant Flush DIY

I don?t know if this has been talked about or anyone has done it. But this is what I am thinking about. I?ve made this up in my head, and would like to ask the board members to check if it is feasible. Goal is to flush all coolant out (radiator, heater core, block, head, etc)

Suppose I can find/make a Y adapter for the upper hose, each of the two branches of the Y has a valve. Just like what you?d find in the Home Depot in the garden hose section, just that one branch has to have a larger diameter to fit the upper hose.

The steps would be as follows

1. Start from a cool engine, drain the radiator from lower hose, re-connect lower hose
2. Remove the upper hose at radiator end, make the Y connection described above
3. Open valve A, close valve B
4. Fill radiator with distilled water
5. Run engine to temperature till thermostat opens, set max heat
6. Open valve B, close valve A, as the coolant/water mix drains, add more water to coolant reservoir, keep it topped off, until mix runs clear (no coolant left in engine)
7. Close valve B, shut engine, let cool
8. Drain radiator from lower hose, reconnect lower hose
9. Remove Y adapter, re-connect upper hose
10. Add pure coolant to radiator thru the reservoir.
11. Perform air bleed and check for leaks, if everything is OK, we are done.
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Last edited by wineye; 09-15-2011 at 05:41 PM.
  #2  
Old 05-26-2010, 07:35 PM
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It all seems to work out in my mind as well, my question is why go through all the trouble of doing this?
 
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Old 05-26-2010, 08:53 PM
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Just wanted to switch to a different kind of coolant. I don't know how the shops do complete drain and fill. Anyone?

The Y adapter could be hard to make/find, so as long as I have something to plug the radiator inlet before running engine to temp and drain, I should all be OK, I think.
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Last edited by wineye; 09-15-2011 at 05:41 PM.
  #4  
Old 05-26-2010, 11:36 PM
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If your trying to put in 100% not a 50/50 mix of coolant in thats the WORST thing that you can do to any car, there is a reason why its diluted. doing a regular coolant flush is just fine, there is no need to start cutting hoses and rigging things. as a matter of fact, i have 99k miles on my car and guess what....i still have the same org coolant in it, never been flushed or anything, no probs, i still wanna change it but i have other things to work on.
 
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Old 05-27-2010, 11:52 AM
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Originally Posted by Tracker
If your trying to put in 100% not a 50/50 mix of coolant in thats the WORST thing that you can do to any car, there is a reason why its diluted. doing a regular coolant flush is just fine, there is no need to start cutting hoses and rigging things. as a matter of fact, i have 99k miles on my car and guess what....i still have the same org coolant in it, never been flushed or anything, no probs, i still wanna change it but i have other things to work on.
I'll have to put in concentrated coolant after flushing with distilled water, because about 60% of distilled water remains in the engine and heater. This will give me a 40/60 mix which is not ideal (50/50 would be). I'll have to drain about 2 quarts of the mix, and replace with 2 quarts of concentrated to make it 50/50. I've done the math.

My proposal has no cutting, just take off the upper hose at the radiator, plug the inlet the upper hose connects to, run engine to temp so the old coolant would be pushed out and drained thru the upper hose while I keep the reservoir topped off.

In your statement, you are running to about 100k now still with original coolant, if you have FL22 in your mazda3, that's OK (service life is 120k, 10 years). If not, the coolant is spent in 4 years.
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Last edited by wineye; 09-15-2011 at 05:41 PM.
  #6  
Old 05-27-2010, 07:05 PM
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Then im still good , i still cant wrap my head around as to why your doing this. It seems like a sound plan, and you really wont know the flaws until you decide to actually do it, as i stated before a basic drain is enough, a complete flush would only be called for if the mix was contaminated or a really off ratio.
 
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