When changing coolant, the service manual says in order to get ALL the coolant out, you must remove the following block drain plugs:



From what I've come to realize, the dealer does not follow the cooling system procedure completely if they aren't doing this.. and some old corrosive coolant is left behind. Just make sure when you're servicing the cooling system that these plugs get pulled to get all the coolant out.

 

That is a good idea but way too much work IMO. I change mine every year so if there is a little left over that's ok.

 

how is it too much work? It just looks like 3 bolts that need to be unscrewed and that's all..

 

washing cars ( for some ) is TOO MUCH WORK!

 

It might make sense if someone were draining all the coolant to ship an engine or store it. Someone doing coolant replacement maintainance can easily run a few gallons of distilled water through the system before refilling it instead. It may be only 3 bolts, but that doesn't mean they are easy to get to.

I'll bet there is some oil left in the engine after emptying the pan that could be removed by removing the heads and letting the engine sit upside-down overnight on a barrel too. Shouldn't be too much work to get that old oil out, the engine is just bolted into the car, after all.

 

Why would you want to drain the coolant system in the first place if you are not planing on storing it for a long period of time say a couple of months... When ever my coolant get's low I just put more into it never thought of draining all of it completely...

 

If you've never had a radiator blow up on you it probably wouldn't make much
sense to flush your radiator. On my last Z the radiator blew up half way to
Vegas......towing to Vegas on a flatbed and a new radiator from Nissan plus
a 10% charge because I wanted it fixed by the next day $1800.00! That
didn't make the trip worth while at all and definitely no fun. It's a shock when
you pop your hood and those plastic side tanks are blow off......Ouch!

 

Yeah, the two bolts on the engine block are very hard to get to since there is so much stuff in the way. Easiest thing to do I would say is to do a drain and refill from the radiator and reservoir every 15k miles. And use water wetter.

 

Do you see where those bolts are!?!

I have done almost every mod to my car myself; I'm not lazy. But I change my coolant at least every year so 95%+ of it is good and new which is good enough. Plus with the big @ss AMS radiator I have it has a larger capacity.

 

do you guys flush your radiators with a hose anymore?

 

Using a hose to flush or fill the radiator is fine... as long as someone is pouring distilled water into a funnel on the other end...

Minerals in tap water can clog up the small passages in the radiator and reduce cooling efficiency.

 

I don't.

 

Hey TIMMAHH..!! Hey bud... When upgrading your hoses like I am with the Venair kit. What is the best method ?? I'm sure if you unclamp one of the lower hose connections, that most if not all the coolant will come out right..?? At that point do you just replace all the rest? Will there be any residual coolant loss with the rest of the hoses..?? Trying to eliminate as much mess as possible. Also, how much coolant will I need to fill'er back up...??

ps... Where's my clamps bud...!!