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If you ever thought of flushing your own radiator...

Posted: April 11th, 2002, 10:18 pm
by Edwood
<I>Be very careful!!!</I><BR>(Aside from burning yourself.)<P>I successfully flushed the radiator of my 1.6L MX-3. But not with problems.<P><B>The "drain cock" screw for the radiator is made out of plastic. I found this out the hard way, as I stripped the phillips head (luckily in the closed position).</B> :eek:<P>After a lot of swearing, I ended up doing it the quicker and messier way. Using a wrench, pull off the c-clamp holding the big hose leading to the engine on the left side (when you are in front of the car facing the front bumper). The one at the engine is easier to take off. On my MX-3, the C-Clamp on the radiator is facing down, so you have to be under the car to get to it. Pain in the @$$.<P>When you pull it off, be ready, as all the coolant will quickly come gushing out. (you did remember to let the engine cool down, right?)<P>At this point you might as well replace that hose and clamps with new ones, as you've just pulled it off.<P>Hope this helps someone to not strip the plastic drain-cock screw as I did.<P>-Ed

Re: If you ever thought of flushing your own radiator...

Posted: March 1st, 2004, 12:30 am
by amadho
Thank you very much, this helped me. I spent 2 hours trying to find the damn thing. I was looking for a tube drain. Thanks.

Re: If you ever thought of flushing your own radiator...

Posted: March 1st, 2004, 1:05 am
by mitmaks
someone post this in V6 FAQ

Re: If you ever thought of flushing your own radiator...

Posted: March 1st, 2004, 4:57 pm
by lakersfan1
How does pulling the upper radiator hose do anything? You're only going to get a liter or two out of it that way. You need to drain it from the bottom to get nearly as much coolant out as you need to to consider it anything near a flush.

Re: If you ever thought of flushing your own radiator...

Posted: March 2nd, 2004, 11:23 am
by FlyingMXer
After about twenty minutes of looking I gave up trying to find a drain plug on mine. I pulled the main hose on the bottom left side (facing the car). It had a spring type clamp on it so I just slid it back on after letting the old drain out. Top off with new and you're done.

Later,d