Coolant Change ??'s

mikebike357

mikebike357

New member
And yet another ?...

Went to drain the coolant... removed the radiator cap, opened the valve at teh bottom of the radiator. Nuthin. Nothing comes out. WTF? Is there a secret to get the juice to drain? If I keep unscrewing the valve coolant comes rushing out, but it's not supposed to come out of there, it's supposed to come out the nipple.
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HELP!

 
The nipple is actually pretty small and may be clogged with that conditioner crap that subaru recommends. Just get a big bucket and completely unscrew the sucker, even if the nipple was working correctly it takes forever.... Once it is drained see if you can unclog it.

 
The nipple has a umm.. side port? There is a hole in the bottom of the plug and one in the side of the threaded portion about half way up. You need to spin it out partially before you get any flow. Take off both caps. You'll get coolant all over basically no matter what. It sucks. Best is when it runs into the subframe and pours out all the bolt holes in about 8 locations behind the engine.

 
Its a lot more complete if you pull the 2 10mm bolts off the thermostat housing, let the coolant pour all over your arm while trying to get it into the bucket, then when you've got that squared away pull the thermostat out of the block. That way the block gets drained and the radiator.

Or, on turbo cars, I pull the lower radiator hose off the radiator, which drains a ton of coolant, then I pull the block plug which resides right behind the thermostat housing on the block. You'll need a rather large allen socket for that.

If you do pull the t-stat, look at the t-stat gasket before putting it back in. The goobered-up gaskets like to rain on your parade and a new one is cheap money. Usually gaskets with less than 60kmiles on them can be re-used. I scrape a flatblade screwdriver around the edge of the t-stat hole to remove any residue or aluminum corrosion that has built up inside where the t-stat sits.

 
...and when / if you do pull the tstat, make sure you pay attention to its orientation in the block

there's a little bypass valve on it which denotes front and rear, and if you get the tstat in backward, it can't open all the way and motor will tend to run hot. not deadly, but noticeable

 
Its a lot more complete if you pull the 2 10mm bolts off the thermostat housing, let the coolant pour all over your arm while trying to get it into the bucket, then when you've got that squared away pull the thermostat out of the block.
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...or drive around a little bit (getting everything nice and hot) then remove the radiator cap and run like hell

 
i did this...except for the run like hell part...guess a little over an hour wasn't long enough for the fluid to cool down

i was covered in warm sticky fluid....YES, i realize the irony

 
...and when / if you do pull the tstat, make sure you pay attention to its orientation in the block

there's a little bypass valve on it which denotes front and rear, and if you get the tstat in backward, it can't open all the way and motor will tend to run hot. not deadly, but noticeable
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Good point.
Is this how it's done at the dealer for $60?
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Um, yes. But its not like they are handing me $60. I get $6 from that. ;D If you want I can come over to your house and do it for $45.
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