Hey, I recently bought a sweet 88' olds cutlass supreme classic brougham from an older gentleman who basically just drove the car to church on Sundays as it only had 16,900 miles on it when I bought it. I'm going thru all fluids belts and hoses etc..... My question is in watching your video on how to flush the coolant , take thermostat out, flush both directions should I use a "chemical flush Number 1 and secondly should I drain the block from the coolant block plugs to get all the water out before adding 50/50 mix? thanks rj
If you do use compressed air, dial it down to about 12-15 psi like @mmj said. Be sure to replace the thermostat, radiator cap and temp sender and burp all the air out after refilling with 50/50.
After 30+ years, probably should replace the hoses if they've never been changed. Maybe replace the water pump also?
Great point.
should I use a "chemical flush Number 1
How bad does it look? (the fluid, inside of radiator and reservoir, etc)
should I drain the block from the coolant block plugs
I wouldn't bother. Just flush it really well with clean water, and drive around a bit.
After using the radiator flush chemical, I've seen people use a shop vac or compressed air to blow out all of the liquid out of the block. I plan on doing that next time I need to remove the old coolant.
compressors usually run around 100psi. Coolant systems are only designed to operate at 15psi. So make sure you dial it down. But I don't think air will get everything out anyway.
My compressor tank pressure gets up to 150 psi but the outlet pressure can be dialed down to under 15 psi. The last time I flushed my 02 Mustang coolant I used a lot of distilled water. I was thinking there's got to be a better way. And if you want to refill with 50/50 mix you'll have to get as much of the distilled water (or old coolant) as you can out of the block. There's going to be something in the heater core also.
nope you can leave the water in there. Just add sufficient concentrated antifreeze to the radiator .
I've done that too. I estimate that I ended up with a 55/45 mix. Turned out to be close enough according to my Prestone antifreeze tester.
I would be shocked if the radiator and heater core are still in good shape after so many years of same coolant. Coolant chemically breaks down over time and the acidity would probably cause some issues even on a car with low miles. What the hell, flush the system out and see what happens. Replacing the radiator, waterpump, thermostat isn't much of a chore but if your heater core goes - there's a big project unless you decide to bypass it. Removing all the plastic parts to get to the heater core will be a challenge because they're probably brittle and things break. Best of luck and good find on a car with such few miles.
