flushing coolant system help

Simaroon · April 17, 2011, 04:08:26 PM

ive just emptied the rad to be confronted with this:

the car had been stood for 2 years before i bought it.

ive yet to empty the block, thought id write this in the hope for a reply by the time ive emptied that to.
i know you are only to use de-ionised water but is it safe to just flush it thru with a normal water thru a hose pipe, just to try and wash some of the ....e away??? and whats the best way to do this, just let the water run thru the fill cap attatched to the water pump??
any help much appreciated:3gears-rh

Simaroon · April 17, 2011, 04:39:51 PM

right, ive flushed it thru with hose water, i thoulght it couldnt be anyworse than the gunk which was in there.
next problem, how the hell are you supposed to get the air locks out without taking the standard airbox out??? i can not get to any rad pipes, or am i missing a trick?

Simaroon · April 18, 2011, 12:44:15 PM

i would like to thank everyone for their help !

it just goes to show how good the sxoc is.

leefitz · April 18, 2011, 02:56:46 PM

I\'m sure someone can help, i will be looking to know myself at some point too. Only ever done it on the drifter and it\'s a non standerd setup so not much help to you. I\'m sure a good run/rev would force the air to the top of the pump

Ada7 · April 18, 2011, 09:57:05 PM

Fill up the system the best you can from the main filler neck. Next take off the water hose at the back of the trottle body and using a funnel fill it up from the hose till the water flows out of the throttle body evenly. That way you should be sure to have the back of the engine filled up. Run the engine for a bit to get pressure and when it coolled down check the level again and top up if necessary

Adam

Simaroon · April 18, 2011, 11:49:47 PM

Quote from: Ada7;756728Fill up the system the best you can from the main filler neck. Next take off the water hose at the back of the trottle body and using a funnel fill it up from the hose till the water flows out of the throttle body evenly. That way you should be sure to have the back of the engine filled up. Run the engine for a bit to get pressure and when it coolled down check the level again and top up if necessary

Adam

thanks mate, ive put 6ltrs in there now thru the filler neck.
when i did a search i read about taking the hose off to the throttle body, but mine seemed stuck solid and dint want to risk splitting it.

i think ive got a lot of air out now, ive run the car to normal temp with heaters on hot and it didnt over heat, i left the cap off the main filler and its spilling a kind of white froth, no air bubbles coming thru. what does that imply? when i let it cool, the main filler still had water about 2inches from the top, the ast tank had a little water near the bottom.

any input appreciated:Thumbs-up

Simaroon · April 19, 2011, 07:36:33 PM

any info on the foaming?

PDale · April 19, 2011, 08:21:24 PM

Quote from: Simaroon;756903any info on the foaming?

Car has rabies

Simaroon · April 19, 2011, 08:31:34 PM

Quote from: PDale;756918Car has rabies

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

thanks for the help :Hammer

PDale · April 19, 2011, 09:09:03 PM

Quote from: Simaroon;756922hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I thought it was quite funny as well

Anyhoo, how long did you leave the cap off for? You only leave the cap off for a short time until it gets a bit warm and then put it back on. If the coolant system isn\'t pressurized(sp) i.e no filler cap when it gets near boiling point it will find the path of least resistance which is out the filler neck.

Next time you go out to your car, fill the coolant to the top and then top up your air separation tank to halfway. Leave the cap off the water filler neck next to the alternator and run car for approx a minute or so (even better if you have a water temp gauge in which case let it get to late 80s) and then replace cap. Take car for a run, bring some coolant with you just in case. When you get back, let car cool down and check water levels again as described earlier and top up if necessary. Rinse and repeat until water level doesn\'t drop.

The throttle body hose tip as mentioned by someone else is a good method as it cuts down time on faffing around bleeding the coolant system of air. If its a bit stubborn, gently pry the hose off using a flat blade screwdriver near the edge of the hose. Once you have the edge lifted you can be a bit more gentle on the hose stuck further in and if necessary trim the edge of the hose if you manage to split it with the screwdriver. Obviously only do this when the engine is cold. :Thumbs-up

Simaroon · April 19, 2011, 09:22:22 PM

thanks mate, really appreciate that write up there.

yeh, i left the filler cap off for about 5mins hoping the engine would warm and let any air trapped to still bubble out, maybe the foaming was just the heat of the water, i could see it steaming, its worrying how hot everything gets on these cars. i panic every time i start it

the car is sorn at the mo, so cant take it for a drive, i will however leave it run for a while on the drive tomorrow with the cap back on.thanks again mate.

PDale · April 19, 2011, 11:13:52 PM

No probs, yeah the foaming would be the coolant getting hot and will just spew out the filler neck. When you replace the cap when the car is running, get the car up to full operating temperature so the thermostat opens, heater on full blast (which you\'ve been doing already) and give it some revs to get the water pump working a bit. Doing this will get the air to the top of the system so you can just top up the coolant when the engine cools down.

Once you\'ve done a coolant change the first time and got it sussed, each time after that is much more straight forward although still tedious at times!

Simaroon · April 19, 2011, 11:22:28 PM

yeh, everything is new to me with this fd, and i dont really understand the coolling system on it yet.
ive had nissans for the last 5 years, they are a lot more simple and less worrying.

L18M · April 20, 2011, 02:00:08 AM

i would of thought more people would input on this.
unless its been covered so many times already and someone not used the search button?? lol

best thing to do is when you fill up with water, and its full then \'burp\' the system.

1) fill coolant to top
2) leave cap off
3) stuck an upside down cola bottle (1l or 1.5l etc) with the bottom cut out so you can pour more water into it (you need to leave the cap off the cola bottle)
4) run engine to about 85 degrees (i cant remember how warm the fd should be but the thermostat will open allowing air out
5) once you see air coming out fill with more water until it stabilizes
6) turn off engine and let cool.
7) repeat 2 more times just to make sure no more air comes out.

while you have the cola bottle in place you can see if a lot of air is coming out. it it fizzes like a glass of champers then you in trouble and means water seal is gone.

hope this helps

mo_yassin · April 20, 2011, 10:00:37 AM

The bottle technique works on every car. Here it is demonstrated on a nissan. The only difference will be that on the FD you\'ll have to wait for the coolant to cool back down for the level in the bottle to go down again, as you can\'t just let it flow into the overflow tank, unless you\'ve done the AST delete mod...

http://www.driftworks.com/forum/technical/126934-bleeding-nissan.html