The antifreeze in my camaro is about 12 years old. It still looks new because the car only has 18k miles. I need to flush it. The antifreeze can't be any good anymore. The car is original and I don't want to cut hoses or anything like that. I will remove hoses to flush if that's what it takes. How would I do a complete flush of the entire system without installing a flush kit?

I was told to remove the upper radiator hose and the thermostat and run water into the thermostat housing and continue until I see clear water coming out the lower radiator hose. Would that work and would it flush everything including the heater core?

Thanks for your help!

 

remove the knock sensor on the passenger side,allow coolant to drain..

remove the heater core "return" line from the radiator...hardware stores have a repair kit for garden hoses, clamp the heater hose line to the garden hose..

remove the thermostat housing and the thermostat, replace the thermostat housing..

allow the garden hose water to circulate for a little while until you see clear water...also, you may need to apply vacuum to the recirc valve located near the A/C compressor.

this has always worked well for me, and gets all the old crap out.

 

Just to make sure I got this right. I have arrows to what I believe are the return hose at the radiator and the recirc valve. Is this correct? How would I apply vacuum to that valve if needed?

How many quarts are needed to refill?

 

Can anybody confirm my previous post? I would like to do this on Saturday.

 

Youre correct in your ID of the return hose and recirc valve. The V8 has about 16 quarts coolant capacity. 1/2 that needs to be antifreeze. Drain the system after flush. Add 8 quarts straight coolant. Then top off with water. Install new thermostat. Be sure that T-stat has air bleed valve. I drill a 1/16 hole in any T-stat that doesnt have an air bleed. This makes bleeding the cooling system easy.

 

I'm curious as to why I would remove the knock sensor on the passenger side. There is a bolt on the drivers side of the engine block that can be removed which drains the antifreeze. What's the theory behind removing the knock sensor and not the bolt on the drivers side or vice versa or even removing both.

Also what are the torque specs on the thermostat housing bolts so I don't overtighten those?

 

One thing that concerns me about what I'm reading here is the use of water. Nobody has mentioned that it should be distilled water. Since your car is original and low miles, I'm assuming it sits a lot. Regular water will eventually leave deposits inside the radiator. Coolant is fairly inexpensive as is the distilled water. You could also drain the system as best you can, refill it, drive around to get the system flowing, let it cool and replace it all again.

Here is what mine looked like when I replaced my heater core a year ago with maybe one or two flushes in 23 years.

 

That's exactly how mine looked inside. You do bring up a good point about the distilled water. Also I'm not going to take the thermostat out. You can't get the housing off without removing the front of the throttle body. I took the knock sensor out on the passenger side and the block bolt out on the drivers side and it drained 14 quarts. So I think I got the majority of it.

 

I should also note that I did flush it out with city water and let it all drain out and then I filled with a 50/50 premixed antifreeze so that should be ok.

 

If you use hot water....theres no need to remove the thermostat. Just thought Id mention that for future reference. Nice clean rad btw