Flushing with distilled water

[Unsung]

I've read a lot of posts on flushing the coolant and refilling. But everyone was doing it a different way.

I drained the mystery coolant and poured a half dozen gallons of distilled water through the radiator and block and out the drains trying to clear out as much as I can.

There's likely 2-3 gallons left of old coolant. I was thinking of filling it all with distilled water, running the truck with the heat on until warm for a few minutes, then opening drain plugs and after it drains, pouring in my four gallons of new coolant, FOLLOWED by distilled to top it off.

Is this a good method to flushing the system? Filling it up with distilled only to thin out that remaining 2-3 gallons of mystery coolant, then draining and refilling for the last time?

 

[FordGuy100]

Here is what I would do:

Pull the lower petcock on the radiator, and also the block plugs, let everything run out. Pull out the thermostat (this also takes the upper hose off). Take a garden hose and run it through the radiator and block for a few minutes each, this should flush everything out of each, except for tap water. Reinstall the thermostat/hoses/petcock/plugs. Fill with distilled. Run it till its up to temp. Drain block and radiator. Fill once more with distilled, up to temp and then drain. At this point all of the old coolant will be gone, and most all of the tap water will be gone. You are then good to go!

 

[Unsung]

Wouldn't using water from my garden hose be counter effective when I'm trying to get old coolant and possible tap water out of the truck already?

 

[OLDBULL8]

Tap water is OK to flush, as long as it's NOT Well water. Well water contains many dissolved contaminates, such as Lime.

 

[brokeasajoke]

I flushed mine twice with distilled running it for a few min. After flushing it with tap water like 4 times. Then drained radiator no block plugs again. filled with distilled then drained everything including block. Filled with distilled and sca antifreeze. Thats just what i done, probably not textbook or anything. I had oil in mine and flushed with cascade dish detergent to rekove oil residue.

 

[OLDBULL8]

Should have add to my above post. There are two block plugs, one is behind the starter, just in case you don't know that.

 

[Unsung]

Yeah I took out both drain plugs. My coolant was very clean, a pale green. Pouring distilled jugs into it, it's still clean as can be. Funny thing was opening the radiator drain after putting a big bucket under it to catch coolant and all the coolant shooting over the bucket and hitting the front diff cover... damnit.

I think I'll run distilled through the system twice and then fill it up. I don't have time or patience for thermostats right now.

I've heard as much bad for well water as tap water. One containing chemicals, the other containing natural baddies.

Is it safe to drive this truck a couple of days with just the distilled water in it? Just curious. It's 60+ degrees here.

 

[OLDBULL8]

Just water is fine as long it don't freeze.

 

[icanfixall]

Really the most important item is to drain the block. There are a plug thats 1/4 inch pipe threads. Remove them and install petcocks. Now drain the radiator and the block. Flush with anything but well water. Drain it and fill with coolant and distilled water. If the coolant does not have the sca in it then add that too. Mix the distilled water and coolant in a bucket. I personally wont use a 50/50 mix. I run about a 35 to 40 % coolant to distilled water. Why.. Well water transfer heat better than coolant does. I use steam distilled water and not the reversed osmosis distilled water..

 

[Unsung]

I got four gallons of pretty pink fleet charge coolant ready to go. On my way to get a ton more of distilled water. I'm about to buy Walmarts stock out

 

[chris142]

no need to turn on the heater as theres no heater valve. a blend door only.

 

[79jasper]

Fordguy is saying do the main flush with a hose til you get clear water, then use distiller to get the garden hose water out.
Which is how I did it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[CDX825]

I've read a lot of posts on flushing the coolant and refilling. But everyone was doing it a different way.

I drained the mystery coolant and poured a half dozen gallons of distilled water through the radiator and block and out the drains trying to clear out as much as I can.

There's likely 2-3 gallons left of old coolant. I was thinking of filling it all with distilled water, running the truck with the heat on until warm for a few minutes, then opening drain plugs and after it drains, pouring in my four gallons of new coolant, FOLLOWED by distilled to top it off.

Is this a good method to flushing the system? Filling it up with distilled only to thin out that remaining 2-3 gallons of mystery coolant, then draining and refilling for the last time?

Your method of flushing the system is sound. You could have done the first few flushes with tap water as the others mentioned but no need for tap water now. If you had a dirty cooling system flushing with tap water the first couple time makes sense. Being that you said the system was pretty clean to begin with I think you will be ok. Fill it up with distilled water once more and run it up to operating temperature and drain it. That should be plenty clean for new coolant.

 

[Unsung]

I may have a problem. Was going to drain the second dose of distilled water before finally filling with coolant. Went to open the radiator drain plug. It's a brass fitting next to the bottom radiator hose. When I unscrewed it, the brass thing the plug was screwed into came with it... I can't get my head in there to see. But going by touch I basically have a nickel size hole with no threads where the drain plug used to go. I take it this piece isn't supposed to come out..?

 

[franklin2]

Does it look like it was soldered in? May have to take the radiator out and solder it back in place unless you have a aluminum radiator.

In my experience you do not have to worry about having garden hose water in the flushing process IF you open the drain plugs in the block. When you open those, there is no water left in the block, so the water you are flushing with is just a tool to push the old stuff out, since it really doesn't stay in there.