I will be changing the coolant in my 2005 Chrysler Town & Country Minivan (3.3 liter engine)as soon as the weather warms up and want to remove as much of the old coolant as possible. This means removing the two engine block coolant drain plugs that are mentioned in the Haynes manual. Has anyone ever found and removed these plugs before? What type of tool is required to remove them?
I conclude your concern is with getting as much old coolant out as possible? While Haynes may say drain the block this way,I find just pulling the lower radiator hose works good enough.
Put this car up and take a look, rate the degree of difficulty compared to the benifit.
Hardly anyone does that. Just take out the thermostat and flush the engine well with a hose in the radiator with the radiator drain open. When the water comes out clear or stops changing color, stop. If the latter, sell the car. Do 2 or 3 drain, circulate and fills with distilled or deionized water if your tap water quality is bad and then refill with from jugs of 100% coolant, not the 50-50. You might want to measure how much water drains out and compare it to the capacity in your owner manual to make sure you will get enough glycol in there. If it is short, take off the lower rad hose to drain better.
How are you going to deal with the coolant you remove? (can’t go down the drain). You will have a lot more contaminated fluid if you flush with the hose until clear.
Disposal of anti-freeze down drains is OK. It is still legal. Sometimes an eight point socket, sometimes a hex key and maybe a six point socket. If you get no drainage, you might have to poke the cast metal out with a screwdriver, there may be a thin layer. I had that surprise before. You don’t have to go crazy by draining the entire system; you don’t want to cause an air pocket in your heater core. Just doing the easy way every three or four years is a lot better than some cars get.
I based my disposal comment on what I was told by officals in WI. Not suprisingly this issue has made appearences on the Forum before (do the search) it turs out the word is.
Not on the ground where pets can get it (almost unaminous)
Different rules in different places.
Most people say OK in a pipe that goes to treatment plant.
Most people say no in septic
Some parts stores will take it
Sorry for any confusion,not intended
Personally I would not put it anywhere but with a recycler
Remove the lower radiator hose from the radiator. 95% of the coolant will drain out. Fill with water and drain again. 99.5% of the coolant has been drained in less than 10 minutes…
then refill with from jugs of 100% coolant, not the 50-50.
??? 100% provides LESS protection! Are you assuming there is residual water?
There is a lot of info out there about the decrease in effectiveness of coolant when a to high ratio of coolant to water is used, you must be (as Joseph mentioned) concluding quite a lot off 100% water remains in the system.
I like using those prizims you look through to check concentration (they have a name something like spyro…meter, not sure)
This is what I have done in the past when I was not sure how much of the total coolant and water was removed and what concentration remained. I thoroughly flushed the system several times. Then I refill with a 70% anti-freeze/30% water mix, the maximum that is recommended. Then, after running the engine through a heat up cool/down cycle, I re-check the concentration with a tester. Then I add water or antifreeze as needed to get the concentration around -34 or slightly lower. I think that I have always found that I would have to add more anti-freeze because more water remained in the system than what I expected. I have never had any problems with my cooling systems and keep my vehicles for a long time, up to 13 years.
Define “contaminated” . Is that 50% glycol, 10%, 1%,…, 0.00001%. If diluted with a copious amount of water, it is water.
My 99 has the same engine. The rad drain plug is a bayonet mount with an o-ring and it’s best left in place my experience. Place the heater control on Hot. Now I do what other suggest: loosen the lower rad hose and dump the coolant into a big pan or plastic box. Remove the rad cap. Drain the overflow tank, too.
I save that stuff in plastic bottles and take it to a recycler.
Run some water into the rad and catch what comes out. Recycle that, too.
Fill the system with water and run it it a few minutes until temp is normal. Let it cool for an hour or more. Drain that. It’s pretty dilute. I feel OK putting that down the drain (municipal sewerage system.)
Find the total capacity of your cooling system. Pour in half that in pure antifreeze, then top up with water to the rad neck. Put a 50-50 mix in the overflow tank. I put the front of the van on ramps for the next step: run the engine with the rad cap off, being ready to catch overflow in a big pan. As the engine warms up you may need to add water. Once it’s at normal temp, turn off the engine, top up the rad and cap it.
Check the coolant level in rad and overflow the next couple times you find the engine cold. The rad will only need water. The overflow will need 50-50.