The Coolant is Drained

[Otto Man]

Just a bit curious
My engine is drained of coolant. Is there a procedure to refill it? Seems to me if I just dump a bunch of prestone in the radiator it may take minutes to start the circulation process and that may overheat the fragile engine. Should I pour some coolant in wherever I can?
What's the drill?
Thanks
Chris

[kiwi]

When.....

.....you fill it/ it fills from the bottom up & your pump will be rotating until the T stat opens.......while running: bAir bubbles will work them self out/ Keep cap off till coolant drops~is circulating/ leave 1/2" or so & replace cap.......

[NY eric]

coolant

What kiwi said but i usually have to drive the car arround the block after I think it is filled and then ad more to get the car to maintain temp. I dont know if I get a air pocket in my car or is that normal.

[SVOeric]

a couple of things --

#1 don't use straight anti-freze -- you want 50-50 mix antifreze\water

#2 when filling, fill the radiator, and start the engine, -- turn the heat on . leave the cap off --- when the thermostat opens, you will see the level drop -- keep filling until you get it full. put the cap back on, fill the plastic tank (to the max level) and go for a short drive -- let the engine cool, and before removing the cap (or get a face full of hot anti-freze) -- and check the level in the radiator, and the plastic resovior.

[Pat_in_L.A.]

The most efficient way is to assure that your radiator cap is the highest location in the cooling system. Have the car pointed uphill or the front end on jackstands when you let the engine run until the thermostat opens and burps the system..

Folks with Interrads know what I mean. Since the Interrad has the radiator cap lower than the top of the cylinder head, that means that there is a very large air bubble in the worst possible location (the cylinder head).

[gbeaird]

Man, I remember trying to do that with our old Jeep. It had a habit of overheating. I put the thing in my Dad's driveway (steep uphill angle to get from the street to the driveway) and THEN putting the rear wheels on ramps to get the back of the engine, which sat at an angle in the engine bay, higher than the front. This was because the coolant return line to the coolant reservoir, a stupid plastic thing built by Renault, that was pressurized with the rest of the system, was located at the back of the engine.

This process helped drop the temp of the engine about 20 degrees, giving us about another 10 minutes drive time before we had to turn the heater on to keep it from overheating. Talk about stupid designs.

We traded that Jeep for our GMC 2500HD, which we use to tow the SVO to autocross events (heh, heh, SVO content).

Gene Beaird
86 2R SVO
Pearland, Texas

[venomizd93]

Coolant System FYI

Make sure your radiator caps rubber seal is good too(i.e. not 18 yrs old) seeing that I tight system seal is critical to the radiator operating properly. It's engineered to actually raise the boiling point of the system(under 16lbs.) of pressure. This is a common problem with SHO's and I would assume that it would be typical with any older car with a slow leaker radiator cap. I've seen it happen and many people throw money into other things to try to find the overheating problem from continuing to happen when it was a simple $8 rad cap. Just an FYI not an alarm for ya.

[Otto Man]

Is there a preferred anti-freeze to use in our babies? Or is Prestone® as good as any brand?
Chris

[NY eric]

preston

that is all I use.