Hey guys, my dad flushed and filled his coolant on his 04 blazer today. The old coolant must have been 4 years old, the heat from his heater wasnt hot, maybe warm, and took awhile for the heat to come on.

The heat is hotter, and heats up much faster. I want to use one of those prestone coolant tester, but his neighbor said those testers are good for the green coolant, and not for dexcool??

My dad has told me the temperature gauge doesnt pass the 1/4 mark. My gauge is in Celsius since I'm in canada. Pic attached was after the car on for 15mins idling. After searching this may be air in system, tstat, or rad cap?

 

Could be any of the things you mentioned OR the coolant temp sensor. Are you getting a code at all?

 

Small leak on my moms jimmy cause it to over heat. All the dirt in grim ended up building up inside the heater core.

 

Keep your neighbor away from your vehicles. The tester will work with any coolant.

 

No code at all, ordered a new a tstat, and rad cap. Didnt get the sensor, didnt read this in time.

Edit: just read a thread on how to burp the coolant, incident know inl was suppose to raise the passenger side to allow the air out. I will try this before I change parts.

We flushed the heater core like in chrisfix's YouTube vid. The hear comes on faster and hotter than before.

Thank you, I will test it when we solve this problem.

 

Update,

Stant stat and rad cap came in from rock auto. Well that's what I ordered, but got a gates tstat and cap.

Anyways changed out the tstat, jacked up the passenger side to burp the coolant. Now the temp gauge rises to 100 and stays there. I think I still have air trapped in, the gauge moves from 90 to 100 at times.

Stupid question, but when cleaning the reservoir, do you guys clean the rubber hoses going to and from the rad? The level in the reservoir is not decreasing or increasing, and I know I didnt fill the rad completely full. Could the hoses be clogged with old sludge dexcool?

 

Well from your photo that is in the right spot. mine is right around that range as well. the coolant testers work on all types of coolant. Did your dad wait till the car was cool and not hot to do the coolant flush? when you open the cap do you see kinda jelly type in the radiator or rust colour? that could be old coolant still in there. did your dad flush it with distilled water than tap water after that?

 

HI,

Yes he waited until it was cool. He ran 2 bottles of the Preston flush. He emptied the coolant, pulled the 1 of the heater core hoses and connected a clear tube and garden hose to it. Then added distilled water and the 1st flush bottle. He let the car idle for 20mins, then drove 5-10kms, let it cool and drained.

He repeated the same procedure with more distilled water, and the 2nd rad flush bottle. After he drained the 2nd batch, he just ran distilled water and let it idle for 10mins.

After that he poured 3.78L of concentrated dexcool, and 2L of distilled water, then used a 50/50 mixture in the reservoir, and in the rad.

There was brown crude in the rad cap opening, but after the 2nd flush it looked a lot better.

 

Sounds like youe dad did everything right. As long as you got all the old coolant brown sluge out of your good. As for the coolant Reservoir there should be a min line and a max line on it. Fill it to the max line and you should be fine.

 

Thanks, everything is good. The car doesn't overheat, heat comes on hotter and quicker. I may have to drain some coolant and add pure concentrate. I used 2 different testers, 1 showed i was good upto -22C, and the other was -26C. I did the test when the coolant was cold. It gets -40 here some nights so I will have to solve this asap.

Thanks!

edit: a friend of mine is has a refractometer , and is willing to lend it to me. Are those more accurate these types of testers?