Hi all,

I just changed the water pump on my '98 1500 5.9L 4x4. I wanted to drain the coolant from the block. I found what I think is the drain bolt on the passenger side. It is frozen, would not budge using a pretty long torque wrench and significant force, even after dousing with penetrating oil. I did not want to break it so I backed off. I could not find the drain on the driver's side, I only see the motor mount bolts and starter bracket.

Any ideas on how to loosen the drains? Which is the correct bolt on the driver's side?

It is tough to replace the coolant with distilled water/antifreeze mix without draining the block. I flushed the system and then drained from the radiator with the heater hose disconnected but this only removes about 6 quarts from the system. The total is supposed to be 19 quarts with an additional 1 quart on the overflow bottle. I ended up draining and filling a few times to get to a 50/50 glycol mix but I still have a lot of tap water in the coolant. We have hard water here so I would like to use all distilled.

Thanks,
Barry

 

Yea, my drain plug on the passenger side is frozen as well. Even an impact would'nt break it loose. I have no idea how to get them off. Maybe heating them up or something. And the other drain plug on the driver side is at the rear of the block right next to the starter I believe.

 

+1 on that, I still have a socket stuck on mine from last fall.

 

^ where abouts in MAss are you??

 

Norwell- it's on the south shore about 45 minutes from Boston. I live in Amherst during the school year.

 

hmm I've been to Woburn a few times...my companies old headquarters was there (charrette).... it nice there but people arent very friendly drivers on the thruway...reminded me of driving in NYC..
as far as distilled water....I think the water you have in there is distilled by now... I thought if you left water out for a day or too exposed to air it became distilled naturally?... maybe I have it wrong but thats what I was told when I was younger...

 

both sides of the block have drain plugs, and they're in the same area, tucked in behind the motor mounts. mine were very hard to get out, and wanted to round off, but gave up the fight with a big pair of vice grips clamped on them.

when reinstalling, use some teflon liguid or tape or rtv and just barely snug them in.

 

Thanks for the help everyone. I decided to give up on the drain plugs, not worth the risk of breaking something or the effort. My block drains have not been touched since 1998.

Here is how I got the coolant out of the block. The heater supply hose has a metal junction in its midsection. This can easily be replaced with a T fitting flush kit from Napa. After flushing with tap water to clear out all of the old fluid (using a garden hose with the engine running at operating temperature), disconnect the T from the part of the hose going to the heater core. Cap the top of the T and connect the open end to a 6 foot length of 5/8" ID clear vinyl hose. Plug the hose going to the heater. Drain from the radiator spigot or lower hose (this will remove about 6 quarts).

Now with the engine cold, fill the radiator with distilled water and run the engine briefly (less than 1 minute). The water pump will pump out the old coolant from the block and push in the distilled water. Repeat this several times until the fluid coming out of the vinyl hose is pretty clear. You now have almost pure distilled water in the system. This will require about 6 gallons of distilled.

Now drain the radiator again, close the spigot, and add pure antifreeze to the radiator. Run the engine in short bursts so the pure antifreeze goes into the system and the distilled is removed through the vinyl hose. There will be some mixing so you will lose some new antifreeze with the distilled. After adding about 3 gallons and refilling with distilled, you should be close to a 50/50 mix. Now empty the old fluid from the overflow tank (remove from shroud and dump out) and replace with new 50/50. The listed capacity is 19 quarts plus 1 quart in the overflow tank.

Now remove the T and replace the metal connector in the heater hose. It will take a while for all of the air to come out of the system, and you will have to add some fluid to the overflow tank.

Not as clean as opening the drains in the block, but possibly easier. When done with a cold engine the thermostat is closed so no coolant flows through the upper radiator hose. The old coolant leaves the block from the heater supply hose, the new fluid goes from the radiator through the lower hose to the water pump.

Regards,
Barry