i have a 93 f150 xlt and i want to flush the coolant myself. i have never done much to any vehicle, but im pretty smart and i been reading about it. i seem to have a good understanding of it but when i looked in my hanes manual it talks about draining the engine block. that sounds like alot. does it sound harder than it is and is it even necessary to do? any info would be greatly appreciated.


I LOVE MY F150!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Just pick up a flush kit. It allows you to attach a garden hose to the heater line to flush it.

 

is the kit fairly easy to use?

 

I'm about to flush my radiator too so if you get the kit let me know how it worked

 

Easy to use, easy to install, and cheap.

 

agreed easy to use....

I use the heavy duty flush and drive it to clean it a day or so. then flush it. If its real bad then I either Use Muratic Acid and fill the rad and heater core and let it set for 30 minutes or so. then flush it out.

Or CLR.... CLR really cuts the calcium/silicate out.

When you get Anti-freeze get a LOW-Silicate anti-freeze. The Silicate is what put in there to lube the system and a low Anti-Corrosive. Problem is with heat cycles the Silicate drops out and forms all that white droplets on everything. the more expensive the Anti-freeze the more Silicate it has....

 

I recently tried flushing/changing the coolant in my truck. It turned out to be a huge mess LOL. While trying to get the brown muddy looking fluid out of the system, the thermostat decided to stick shut . My friend was holding his hand over the radiator hole while filling it and draining it. When the water suddenly got hot, he took his hand off the radiator opening and hot water went everywhere! Mind you, all this went down with the truck up on the lift.
We got it down and out of the shop into a back alley. Had to go get a thermostat. While waiting for it (and for a long time after it got there) we ran a water hose into the radiator withe the engine running and ran water through the system until it came out clear.
What a mess! it took a lot of water running through the cooling system with the heater on and engine running to get all the crap out.
We put the new thermostat in and put 50/50 water - antifreeze mix back in it.
I still think I need to run some kind of cleaner/flush through it and maybe run with it in the truck for a while to get the crap out of there. I sure don't look forward to doing it again though...

 

The flush kit makes it so much easier than that.

 

Once you flush it I heard you shouldn't run water in it or is that a myth? And can anyone recommend a good "cleaner" to put in the radiator.

 

They already listed what they use right up there^^^^^^.

You use a mix of water and antifreeze or you use the prediluted stuff. Where do you hear this stuff?