Refilling radiator/cooling system tips

[kcjaz]

Are there any tricks or tips for refilling the cooling system after its been completely drained and the radiator removed and put back? I've only ever replaced a radiator once before on a Toyota and I didn't drain the block when I did it, so all I did was refill the radiator and added coolant to the overfill after the thermostat opened up. On my old Chevy 350, I would take the thermostat housing off as it was on the top and easy to get to with only two bolts and fill the block.

 

[soapy511]

I found this video pretty helpful when I did my radiator.

 

[Moby]

Bringing this back up for some advice. I drained my radiator and some accessories like the oil cooler as part of my supercharger install. I drained into a closed container so I'm not sure exactly how much came out.

I've been slowly filling and squeezing the upper and lower hoses using one of those "leakless" kits like in the video above and have about 1.25 gallons in. But this has taken an hour or so. I found another post on replacing the radiator that suggests 2 gallons to fill.

How long should I continue to keep at this filling/hose burping process before I do the burping with the truck running? How much is enough?

 

[dudemancool1904]

I picked up one of those spill proof funnel kits, worked really well. Refilled the radiator, started the truck, level went down, I put more in, bubbles came out, filling stopped. Plugged the funnel and poured the rest back in the jug. Drove it around for a day, next morning level had settled pretty low so I added to get it to the correct spot (cold it’s supposed to be above L but below F lol). Haven’t touched it since, that was last December,