Well, with one of my christmas presents, I'm going to need to drain all the coolant from my car so I can unhook all the coolant tubes. I cant find anything on draining/changing the coolant on our cars, can someone help me out?

Also, I'm probably going to change out the coolant to something a little more high quality while I'm at it, any suggestions?

 

stay with dexcool unless you want to spend hours flushing your system. there should also be a little vent somewhere to bleed the air out of the system around there the upper rad hose goes onto the block. to drain it i would look for a petcock on the bottom corner of the radiator. as far as the type of dexcool i would stick with prestone

 

For the pressure release I can just open the overflow cap.

As for the drain, I think I know what you're talking about, is it a small cap, almost like a shrader valve cap on the bottom of the Rad?

 

open the overflow but only after the car is cooled down,,.,., the drain is on the botterm of your raid.... on the lower raid mounts/supportds.... it actully goes through the bottem supports as it drains...if u need help pm, me.... i had to replace my raidiator

 

yea most GM cars i've seen they have been "T" shaped look right on the bottom corners. lol either that or take off the lower rad hose and look out lol

 

So, for the refill, should I just fill it up from the overflow, like the manual says?

 

yea...i would bleed the air out through the top of the upper radiator hose fitting. since the air will naturally rise to the top it will get all the air pockets out. watch the fluid level for the next several weeks and keep a jug of coolant with you and check it when you get out of the car to keep it filled up. keep an eye on your temp gauge too. with dexcool it's important to make sure you get out and keep out all the air pockets (keep the overflow bottle full) or else it may cause sludge on your motor.

 

Yes; in fact it should work pretty good since that's the high point in the system.

You should disconnect the upper radiator hose from the engine, and either prop it up or hold it up, and fill the system until the coolant is about to spill out there where you are holding it, then re-attach it to the engine. That should get most of the air out. Some people bleed air out at the heater core also, but that might not be necessary if you haven't disconnected anything there.

I wonder if there is a bleeder on the top of the radiator? Biohazard did you notice? Maybe its not necessary, but the top of the radiator would be the only place I can think of where air could still be trapped.

EDIT - I just read the rest of the thread and realized I said almost everything Boosted SS said ... LOL I should read the whole thing first I guess.

 

ya fil it form the resivior,,,, remember 1/2 and 1/2 though.....fill it, run it, fill it, run it, and so on and then keep some in your back seat or trunk for the next week

 

I'm going to be removing most/alll of the visible coolant tubes during the course of my work anyway

 

If I were you I'd drain the Dex-cool into a few clean jugs and reuse it. I dont know how many gallons our cooling system holds but that **** is pretty expensive. I dont think there would be a need to change it.

 

how much coolant is there, i will look into doing that

 

nvm, according to my manual it says 6.5 liters

Looks like I need four really clean and empty coke bottles

 

How many miles do you have on your car hack? From the reviews at consumerreports.com im thinkin' that dexcool isnt so great. I dont know if changing it early would be better or not.

 

22,000

 

Hmmm. Aah whatever. If it looks crappy then change it.

 

I'm seriously considering switching over to the regular green coolant.