coolant flush

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studders

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Hello all, I need to flush and fill the coolant system in my wife's van. It is a 2005 Pontiac Montana sv6. I was just curious to a rough estimate of how much coolant goes back into it. I cant find the manual and it is already low so I wouldn't be able to see how much comes out. I have also done some google searches but haven't found any info on it. Thanks
 
When I did my 03 I think I only used a gallon. Its very hard to flush the whole system and it takes time to bleed it. Have patience.
 
Steelcity said:
Make sure you use distilled water when you mix .
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the top of the reservoir cap says dex cool and it is the orange stuff. do I still have to mix if I get 50/50 or does it not come that way. This is the first car that we have owned that takes the orange stuff so I'm not to familiar with that type.
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It all depends about mixing it, if you buy full strength then yes you have to water it down but if you buy already mixed(50/50) then just add it.
 
Steelcity said:
When I did my 03 I think I only used a gallon. Its very hard to flush the whole system and it takes time to bleed it. Have patience.
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Hey I know you said it takes time to bleed the whole system and have patience you weren't kidding. Roughly how long does it take, at least for you? I started bleeding it today when I was done flushing and filling and I was on the first valve for an hour and air was still coming out. I ran out of daylight and had to get the nightlights out. After about an hour like I said I was done and tired. I'm going to get out there again tomorrow. I am also working on my truck so while I am bleeding the system on the van I can be doing stuff on my truck. That way it probably won't feel like it is taking that long. Thanks
 
Lol. I heard others say to point the van up Hill to try and get the breeders and rad cap at the highest point in the system.
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Only took me about an hour. Plus after driving a few days I added a little to the reserve. Did that a few times.
 
Steelcity said:
Only took me about an hour. Plus after driving a few days I added a little to the reserve. Did that a few times.
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Ok so here is the deal. I was out there today for about 2 hours and it is still only spitting out of the port on top of the tstat. I am getting nothing out of the port on top of the water pump. Now here is the kicker. I have no heat. My wife is going to kill me and I mean literally. I have always flushed out all of my other cars and I have never had this much problems. I even jacked the front up with my jack as high as I could get it so it was elevated. I drove it around the block for a few. The temp gauge is reading a little higher than normal but as soon as I drove it went down quite a bit. To be honest if I knew this maintenance ordeal for this type of vehicle was this extreme then I probably would have taken it somewhere, lol.
 
melsg5 said:
have you watched these?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad9u8jADrvU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHVG1gKQw3k
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Yes I have seen the second one that is only like five minutes long. Have not seen the first one. However I have now seen them both and one video says to bleed the port on the water pump and the other says not to touch it because it will cause you a bad day. But I will go out and give her another shot because I did miss like one or two steps. Hopefully my next post will say that everything is good. Thanks
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ok well now all is good. I have heat the temp gauge went down and my wife isn't going to kill me. Thanks to all who gave input and helped me out.
 
studders said:
ok well now all is good. I have heat the temp gauge went down and my wife isn't going to kill me. Thanks to all who gave input and helped me out.
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Glad to hear all worked out! What was it that finally fixed it? Probably a little of everything?
 
Steelcity said:
Glad to hear all worked out! What was it that finally fixed it? Probably a little of everything?
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Yeah according to one of the videos that I watched I didn't vent the rad. cap. And I was trying to bleed it all at once and not in spurts. (reving up opening valve and then closing valve) I did that for about 20 minutes or so. Also like I mentioned a little bit ago. One video said only to bleed the valve on the tstat and don't touch the valve over the water pump or you will have problems so I didn't. Then one video said too do both the valves. I only did the one and all went well. Again thanks for all the help
 
glad to hear your wife wont be indicted for murder!
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i purchased this funnel called ez funnel ,, what you do is hook this funnel up to your rad , you fill the rad up all the way leaving fluid in the ez funnel .. then turn the fan in the van to off .. and the heat to max , then you hold throttle under hood , so your vans idling around 2000 rpm , . i do this while parked on a slight hill so the rad is higher then the rest of the engine .. you run the van for about 15 min , then loosen the bleeder valves to allow any air to be removed on both bleeders , even squeeze the hose coming out of the engine to make sure there is no air locked in there , then close valves ..
the good thing with this ez funnel is that you can now drop this stick like drain plug into the funnel so you dont make a mess , then thats pretty much it !! allow van to cool , remove ez funnel and put rad cap back on !! works great for me
 
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