Coolant Flush in alaska

[Snahsberries]

I bought all the stuff to do a coolant flush, the system is filthy from what I can see. I worry that too much water will be left in the system and it will mess up the 50/50 mix, causing it to freeze in the Alaskan winter. I am going with the flush through the radiator hose/thermostat housing. Will there still be a lot of water left in the block?

 

[Daryl]

In my experience it’s hard to be 100% certain if all the water is out of the block. Best sure fire way IMO to assure this is to keep cycling through with 50/50 mix. It will take extra 50/50 mix to do this, but until you see a steady circulation of the 50/50 mix there’ll be doubt if you got it all out. Think of it as a total blood transfusion! And do the rad line burping and especially the heating up of the engine repeatedly. Monotonous and time consuming but definitely worth it in the long run when the job is done right. Good luck and be patient through the process.

And it goes without saying…An engine block heater would be wise and very valuable! Cheers!

 

[Snahsberries]

In my experience it’s hard to be 100% certain if all the water is out of the block. Best sure fire way IMO to assure this is to keep cycling through with 50/50 mix. It will take extra 50/50 mix to do this, but until you see a steady circulation of the 50/50 mix there’ll be doubt if you got it all out. Think of it as a total blood transfusion! And do the rad line burping and especially the heating up of the engine repeatedly. Monotonous and time consuming but definitely worth it in the long run when the job is done right. Good luck and be patient through the process.

And it goes without saying…An engine block heater would be wise and very valuable! Cheers!

Thank you for the reply. I've seen people run the engine briefly to push the water out of the radiator petcock valve on other cars, but that seems dangerous.

 

[shovel]

If you know what the total system capacity is then you can flush with distilled water (assuming distilled water is affordable in AK, do it twice) - then you can add concentrated coolant to whatever is left in the system until 50% of the capacity, then top off with distilled and have exactly 50/50.

Example if it was a 2 gallon system and you had some mystery amount, like 1 quart left in the system but you don't have any way of knowing the exact amount... you know it's a 2 gallon system so pour 1 gallon of concentrated coolant in. Then when you top off with distilled the total amount of distilled water will also be 1 gallon.

 

[Snahsberries]

That's what I believe I'm going to do, and grab a coolant tester to check it's freeze point afterwards. It's my first real go at doing anything that has to do with the engine, it's a little intimidating to me.

 

[RAU03MACH]

never been to Alaska so i have no clue how ball freezing it is there
closest is north Dekota
we had block heaters oil heaters
and had the coolant more of mix than 50/50

 

[Daryl]

Block (engine) heater saved my ass in a seriously cold winter in MN years ago