You can flush out your engine with ordinary laundry detergent, GM recommends Calgon but that may be more to corporate ties than chemistry. Pour some into the system and run the car for about 30 minutes after warm up. You will need to remove both the upper and lower radiator hoses to flush out the block and radiator when done and one end of the heater hoses to flush out the heater cores.
The detergent will help loosen the crud but won’t react with the metal. Since you engine is so old, I would remove the lowest, but easiest freeze plug and flush that way. Replacing a freeze plug is easy as long as its not located in an impossible place. Then when done, refill with 50/50 or slightly stronger, but make sure it is cooling first, you don’t want to waste a lot of money on antifreeze if you don’t have to.
Thanks for the input guys. There’s a local private shop and the guy said I could borrow his lift sometime for the caddy if I need so what I’ll do is get the brakes rebuilt and then I’ll take it there for a proper flush.
I have had issues with many chemical flushes, Prestone super flush included eating up rubber hoses and water pump seals, even on iron block engines. I don’t like chemical flushes at all.
Most of these old V-8’s had block drains at the bottom of the cylinder banks. Usually closed with 3/4" pipe-thread plugs. You can remove them, install a hose fitting and blast water up through the block that way…Automatic dishwashing detergent makes a good engine / radiator flush but it’s not going to dissolve rust and scale build-up…I would not recommend acid in an installed and assembled engine…
If you can adapt a barb fitting onto the fitting on the top of your fuel tank and then use a length of rubber fuel hose to make the connection, that’s fine…Don’t force the hose over the flare, cut the flare off and double-clamp the rubber hose over the steel line…
Yeah that’s the kind of stuff I can’t risk. I just put in a brand new water pump and radiator hoses. I’d rather take the heads off and oil pan and clean it out manually and with a hose. I’ll wait until I can fix the brakes and drive it to a better place for that.
I don’t have jack stands but I was just going to double them up in one section of the frame and just try to get a better look. Not crawl under it. I do really need to pull each wheel to see what’s going on with the brake situation as well.
Do get jack stands, and good ones to boot. Scissor jacks have all their pressure in a little rod on each end, when it breaks, the jack drops. You cannot trust them.
Thanks guys. @oldbodyman really sorry to hear that. I’ve been meaning to buy a legitimate jack/stands for some time now. Scissor jacks take forever too.
According to Wikipedia the caddy weighs 4000-4400 lbs.
At least get a pair of cheap, heavy duty jackstands from Harbor Freight and always leave the jack in place as a bit of extra insurance.
I related the story here a couple of years ago about the wife of a long time friend of mine (since high school) who lost his wife when a car fell on her just a few years back.
My friend is a paraplegic due to a car accident many decades ago and the old classic '65 Thunderbird they owned was his wife’s toy. She also took care of the knick-knack odds jobs on it.
One weekend she slid underneath it to look at something and the ramps the car was on just happened to collapse.
She died almost instantly and a family friend who is in the PD here was the first one to respond but there was nothing he could do.
Horrible. Sorry to hear of these incidents. Sears has a set of two 3 ton jack stands, a 3 ton jack and a crawler for $120. I’ve been meaning to get it but just didn’t want to spend the money on it. There’s really no way around it, and I prefer to do the majority of maintenance on our cars. I used to be able to work on the cars at my Dads who has the same 3 ton craftsman jack, but we’ve moved too far.
I recommend staying away from HARBOR FAKE jack stands
Get craftsman or better
Craftsman is okay, but Lincoln jack stands have better welds, if you can afford them
I think these blue and yellow ones might be okay. They might be Lincoln, sold under the Napa name. I say that because, as far as I know, only Lincoln uses the blue and gold colors
Yeah I think craftsman will do for me. I’ve used my Dads for years without issue, plus I would double up the jack stands or a stand and the jack together for added safety. I haven’t even popped off the rusty hubcaps or undone the lug nuts on this thing yet. That’ll be a whole other ball game filled with set backs and cursing I’m expecting!
I put a clear plastic in line fuel filter before the fuel pump because I’m a little worried the Gas tank is a little dirty still. Is this okay under the hood?