Those drains are in the block and haven't changed since '85 for the most part.

The picture posted in the first post here shows the petcock as it has been since '96, but maybe they have it sealed off inside. Still looks like it has the 1/4 turn features in the extension... That is very odd that they would remove it...

 

You're absolutely right Kyle, I should get more sleep.

I was looking at the manual for draining the rad and those were the pics thaey showed. I guess what they were suggesting is that you drain the block because there is no radiator petcock, as Koreyhas previously stated.
I think I'd go with Tims' suggestion to pull the lower rad hose.

 

I guess they want people to get frustrated with working on their GM vehicles so they start bring them to the dealership so GM can pay out all the pensions.

I still wonder what the smaller thing sticking out of the right side of the pet-**** pictured in the original post is.

 

Looking at the picture closely you will notice the groove for the metal pin used on the white plastic drain plug is not completely cut out either. I understand what has been said about the 1/4" fitting, but that is usually on the white plastic drain plug itself that would stick out of the pet-****. In this case, there is no plug apparently and nothing to turn with the 1/4" extension.

I also changed the coolant out in a 2003 S-10 which looked like the picture above except it had the white plastic drain plug sticking out of it (which I carefully removed and replaced with a black plastic aftermarket thumb-turn version). It didn't have the smaller thing sticking out of the right side of the pet-**** as pictured above either.

 

The smaller thing sticking out the side is the actual drain. The 1/4 turn white peice of plastic normally seals this off when it is turned in. Once turned out, it will uncover the port and drain. The 'nipple' is there so that you can slide over a piece of tubing and direct the coolant where you need to.

Seems GM liked to mess around with this... Odd. Penny pinching at its best. You know an engineer didn't make the decision to remove such a thing.

 

Kyle, I am not 100% sure when they started that pet-**** delete, but I have seen it on allot of new cars of all makes. It is very annoying, but from what I have heard from my radiatior suppliers is they are doing that because the leaking from the pet-***** have been too much ofa problem so they eliminated it all together. I don't know if that is true or not, but it does make sense, at least on chryslers, because those pet-***** SUCK!!! They almost always leak after removing them.