Zack, who are you trying to kid! You have long ago bonded with this Blazer! But I understand... you have the right to criticize it. But if someone else did, I bet that would really get your hackles up! Funny how guys can bond with machines by working on them. A source of pride I suppose. I have had a few like that and my current Blazer is in there as well as my current S10. Both have been big POS, but that's not for anyone else to say! We just keep working on them (actually my Blazer has been pretty much fine for 60K miles after 2 engines and a transmission at 65K miles - now 125K miles).

 

Hopefully you saw I was joking and not serious at all!

 

Haha you're all good Les, you are definitely right too LOL. So I got a new water pump in yesterday and also cleaned out the heater core because on taking the heater core hose off the water pump a lot of sediment came out (I say sediment, I'm not even sure what it actually was, lots of small, thin and hard chunks of something). What's weird is I didn't find this anywhere else in the cooling system, none when draining the rad or the block. Anyways I'm now waiting a few days for the thread sealant to dry then I will fill it up at last and see if the gaskets are good. Almost wish I would have just taken a few more hours and painted the new pump black like the old one but I guess it still looks shiny now!

 

Pristine!

 

Thanks Les, I'll fill it up with coolant tomorrow afternoon at last. The real question is, should I just pour 50/50 mix in now? Because what's left in the engine isn't just water anymore, and the heater core is full of water from flushing it. What would you do here to just fill it back up to a 50/50 mix again?

 

yep if you already had it at 50-50 - thats what you need to do. Then test it for sure since you are in Canada.

 

Thanks Les, just filled it up with 50/50 mix and ran it up to operating temp, all looked good. I'm going to top it off in a bit and look around to make sure no leaks. Also got a coolant tester to make sure as you said. Also, a big update for over on the rough idle thread finally!

 

Did you install a tee? what size is the heater hose?

 

No, I have a garden hose that I cut the end off of and I used a piece of copper water pipe to connect it to the hose from the water pump. I believe that the water pump sucks the water through the heater core so pushing it from the pump side back cleans the junk out of it. Also disconnect the other hose, either at the core or the block, you don't want to push the debris into the motor. And you don't want to use a lot of pressure, the core isn't made to withstand pressure. And if you can, catch the water that comes out so you can see what gets pushed out.

 

I did flush the coolant several times and replaced the the poor Dex Cool coolant on my Blazer ZR2 not long after i bought it.
The reason why i did flush the engine, radiator and also the heater was because of the orange acid based coolant that GM use which in my mind should not have been used on any car.
The DEX-COOL coolant had really sealed/plugged the radiator cap on my car so it was almost unpossible to loosen the radiator cap.
After i got the radiator cap off i took of the lower radiator hose nad opened the tap on the radiator to get all of the coolant out of the system

I cleaned the system by filling up using water and i ran the car hot while having the heater on fully warm so i could clean the heater core as well.
I know you get radiator flush but i did not want to use that since that since that stuff might be strong and on an old car you might get a result like water in the oil so that is why i use only water and rather do the job several times.

I did fill up with just water about 7 times to get all of the Dex Cool out of the system.
Note that i let the car cool down every time i cleaned out the system so i took a little while.

When i had cleaned out the old Dex Cool i put in 50 percent red Valvoline (for alu engines) and 50 percent water so i have a 50/50 percent mix.

I live in northern Europe and have some really cold winters so i always use a 50/50 percent mix on all my cars.

Dex Cool should NOT be used in any car if you ask me. You can not mix Dex Cool with any other coolant either

If i was to buy a new Corvette C8 and if Chevrolet still use Dex Cool anti freeze i would change the coolant on the C8 at once. So that is what i think of Dex Cool