I "was" in the process of changing out the coolant in a 2004 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer until I found this...
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This picture is looking up through the raised rubber flap in the passenger front tire well at the bottom corner of the radiator.

Now not to ask a stupid question, but is the drain plug broken off? You can see a smaller spout to the right of the neck where the radiator drain plug should be. Is this some sort of redesigned thing to open and close the radiator drain with that requires some sort of special tool?

If the radiator drain plug is broken off, how can I get what is left of the broken plug out so I can replace it?

 

Nope, not broken off at all. You will need a 1/4" drive extension to turn it. It'll only take a 1/4 turn, any further and the whole valve will pop out. I attached a rubber hose to the nipple on the bottom to direct the coolant into a bucket instead of having it dribble all over the frame.

 

Nope. I stuck in a 1/4" drive and it never found anything to get into. Strange. I wonder why GM has to make a shade tree mechanic's life so difficult.

 

Just pull hte lower rad hose.

 

Yup. That is all that can be done. The job is almost finished. I had to remove the battery to have enough room to get to the clamp.

 

I can assure you that the drain is there. It takes quite a bit of effort to get the extension to engage. It has the square drive as well as flats for a large screw driver, but only to put it back in. The extension needs to go in to the valve basically from the top of the picture you posted.

Pulling the lower rad hose is another, much faster alternative.

 

I'll try that next year when I do a drain and fill. I had to run distilled water about 8 times throughout the cooling system to get all the nasty red "Death-Cool" out. I used John Deere Cool-Gard as the replacement coolant...

http://www.deere.com/en_US/parts/par..._coolgard.html
http://www.deere.com/en_US/parts/par...mparisons.html
http://www.hitachiconstruction.com/e.../coolants.html

Yes it is dyed John Deere Green, lol. But it is NOT regular green coolant. It is a G-05 formulation with SCA already in it.

 

You will not find a pet-**** on these newer ones. GM for some reason has left them out of the factory radiators. I ahve run into quite a few GMs now that have the provision for it, but do not have it drilled out for a plug. HTH

 

When did they do this Korey? I just did a coolant flush on a friends '04 S-10 quad cab and it had a petcock... Don't know if the rad was ever replaced though... Odd...

 

That's pretty strange. I still see pictures for 2004 with some kind of drain plug but it doesn't look like the usual petcock.


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