Draining the coolant??

[uktotty]

Whats the best way to drain the coolant from the rad before replacing the rad?

[markiii]

open the valves

[uktotty]

Thanks Markiii. This is Becky on behalf of Russ - where are the valves please?!  s:) s:)

[markiii]

bottom right of the rad as your looking at teh front, and 2 more under teh centr of teh car in the lines if your drainingteh whole lot.

suggest you clamp teh 2 hoses going to teh heater matrix until your done as it's a real arse to bleed teh heater matrix (Crap Toyota design)

[blahpony]

A good write up here.

 m http://www.spydermagazine.com/2002/Nov/ ... oolant.htm m

[muffdan]

I believe you need to jack the rear of the car up to bleed the system when filling it back up with coolant.

Jason

[markiii]

 l viewtopic.php?f=47&t=20138 l

since I learned teh hardway

[aaronjb]

Sorry Russ, only just got your text about this.. been sat on the M4 for an hour and a half after they shut it just before I got onto it.

If it were me I'd just clamp the heater matrix hoses and pull the hoses off the rad.. that's what I've always done on other cars  s:oops: :oops: s:oops:

[uktotty]

Sorry Russ, only just got your text about this.. been sat on the M4 for an hour and a half after they shut it just before I got onto it.

If it were me I'd just clamp the heater matrix hoses and pull the hoses off the rad.. that's what I've always done on other cars  s:oops: :oops: s:oops:

Cheers Aaron and guys
I did the pull the pipes and run method!
Cant beleive the damn thing takes about  6 litres to fill up again tho!!
But it was official the old rad was fubar!

[Tem]

But it was official the old rad was fubar!

Wow. Have you been driving on salted roads on winter or what the H happened there?

[uktotty]

No idea Tem, wasnt aware how bad it was till I saw th4elight shine through it!
Never seen one quite that bad before tho.

[SteveJ]

But it was official the old rad was fubar!

Wow. Have you been driving on salted roads on winter or what the H happened there?

They all go like that over here in the UK - it's the salt on the roads in the winter thats the killer. People just dont realise the fins in the bottom half of the rad have dissapeared (they stay in place but are nothing more than powder)

[custardavenger]

Sorry Russ, only just got your text about this.. been sat on the M4 for an hour and a half after they shut it just before I got onto it.

If it were me I'd just clamp the heater matrix hoses and pull the hoses off the rad.. that's what I've always done on other cars  s:oops: :oops: s:oops:

Cheers Aaron and guys
I did the pull the pipes and run method!
Cant beleive the damn thing takes about  6 litres to fill up again though!!
But it was official the old rad was fubar!

Mine was worse than that when I had to do it.

[Wabbitkilla]

Everything running ok Russ?

You had me worried by your last post.
Oh and yes, filling it back up again is a pig  s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

[uktotty]

Not 100% sure Nige, car is running fine and not overheating. s:) s:)
Coolant level is still dropping and top of rad is not getting hot, bottom and pipes are a bit warm.
Not sure if I still have a leak or if the very very knackered rad was causing the leak.
Cant really get this fill and bleed thing sorted in my head!

[Wabbitkilla]

Best thing to do apparently is to park nose down a slope and run it keeping an eye on the level in the expansion tank.
Maybe even parking and leaving on a slope is good too - just till it's settled.

[uktotty]

Still no joy so not driving her this week!
Will try the hill thing when I get a bit of time. Cheers for the feedback so far guys

[onion86]

Got a leak in my car now  s:( s:(

I'm going to have to wait a while as I'm away this weekend to fix it.

I noticed it a couple of weeks ago when I drove a couple of miles and it had already heated up fully and fans weren't blowing out hot air (2 things making me think hmm.. coolant problem!). I stopped using the car for a couple of days until I could get hold of some anti-freeze. When I went to put it in I noticed coolant was non existant in the tank and filled it up to see what happened. I topped it up with less than 2 litres and it was back just above the full mark (from the manual I can see that the whole system takes 8 litres). Took the car for a quick spin to heat it up, left for half an hour and topped it up (was down on the low line so a few hundred ml gone into the system). Then, in a week I topped it up and it haf lost just 1 litre.

Now I thought it'd happened because I heard something rather load (big stone/rock) hit the underside of the car the other day when I was doing about 40 down the A38. I've looked since and noticed that a nappy covers the whole underside front of the car so doubt that was the cause, I'm now thinking that after all the ice etc. over the Winter and last few weeks that maybe my rad has gone like this? It looks like it's pretty hard to get to especially as I've got no access to any ramps at the moment, I had a look from the top (took the frunk plastics out) but couldn't really see much from there, guess it's a remove the front bumper job?

The main question is, is it likely that I could've punctured a pipe? Or is there a 90%+ chance that it's probably the rad that is fubared? (even though it seems to only be losing a small amount of fluid in quite a long time) From leaving the car in one place and moving it the next day, the leak is definitely at the front to the passenger side of the car, although the nappy could potentially be moving it from its place of origin before it drips onto the floor.

Cheers
Stu

(maybe I should possibly move this to another thread)

[loadswine]

Now you know the rough area where the leak is occuring, get the car up to normal temp and then have a really close look at the rad. With the frunk plastics removed, it should be possible to at least feel if the lower edge of the rad is wet in any place , and work up from there.
 The end cap seals have been known to blow very occasionally, so have a good look there as well.
Good luck!

[onion86]

Cheers Nige I'll take a look at that. Nice to know about the end caps, at least gives me somewhere to start looking if I can't find anything on the underside of the rad.