Need to change the coolant in my 2012 3.5 Ecoboost. Owners manual says to use orange coolant, but reading information on Prestone, says that the regular green coolant can be mixed with any color coolant. Don't want to screw up this vehicle, so asking those that may have done this before and best advice out there.

 

The spec is the ORANGE coolant.. DO NOT use the GREEN or YELLOW.... Basically the ORANGE is sold as DEXCOOL for GM vehicles at most Auto Stores and Wal Mart... If you look on the back of the jug, it will list the FORD spec... Or you can go to FORD and pay 4 times the price.

 

Welcome to the forum - Echoing what Steve said, use only the orange stuff

 

I don't know how you plan on draining the system. I had some problems. I pulled the plug under the radiator and drained out 6 quarts. It looked good, but was 6 years old... I checked it to be -20F freeze point.... I added 6 quarts of demineralized water and ran for 5 mintues... drained 6 quarts and it measured -5F .... added 6 quarts water and ran 5 minutes.... drained 6 quarts and it measured +20 freeze point.............At this point I had drained 18 quarts and it all looked good, no crap.... I just put in 6 quarts of DEXCOOL and ran for 5 minutes... It now measures about -5F freeze point .............. I plan to get another gallon of DEXCOOL ( I only bought 2) ....and drain out 6 quarts and then refill for the last time........ Parking nose down allows some of the engine block to drain forward....... parking nose UP allows you to refill better and get the air out.

 

Just did the water pump on my Ecoboost. They didn't make the system easy to drain or flush. No way to drain the block, both main radiator hoses have a "belly" in them that holds a bunch of coolant.

When you pull off the water pump most of the coolant in the block drains out. You can get most of it out by removing the thermostat and suck coolant out of the pump cavity without having to remove the pump. Even with all of that I still only added about 3-gal of coolant to fill the 4-gal system. I filled with straight distilled and was at around 10% so I drained/refilled from the radiator a few more times and got it down to about 2%. At that point I considered it clear of the old coolant and refilled with new coolant. I bought the motorcraft stuff from Rock Auto. Not bad price, I think $15/gal for the concentrate.

Using a refractometer to measure coolant concentration:


In Makuloco's video on the timing chains you can see how he sucks out coolant from the pump cavity/block (around the 31 min mark). I think I would do that if I was flushing as you can get a lot more coolant out than just the radiator drain.

 

I would never want to see a DIY'er not do his thing but, in the case of fluid flushes and exchanges, I personally feel that the dealer is the place to go. No mess, no fuss and no repeated procedures to still not fully achieve a total flush.

I see this all the time with guys draining their transmissions. You'll never get it all out without repeated, expensive time consuming fluid drains.

 

I enjoy doing minor maintenance on my truck and am not about to pay FORD $80. an hour for a SIMPLE change.

I bought 3 gallons of PRESTON DEXCOOL for $14. each and it took about 90 minutes to drain the radiator 5- 6 quarts at a time and refill. I went from -30 F solution to +20 F solution and back to -30 F solution, so that's a pretty good "FLUSH" using multiple drains.

On the transmission, the system holds about 13 quarts. You remove the pan and drain out 6.5 quarts. That is 50%. I added a drain plug so next time I am doing this without removing the plan. The second time you drain 6.5 quarts ( 50% new- 50% used) and add 6.5 quarts of NEW you are down to 25% used oil and 75% new . I would do the second drain in 5000 miles.
After that, every couple years, drain 6.5 quarts and refill with NEW. Its a great way to keep the oil FRESH.

 

Steve, how did you add the plug? I've thought about having someone weld on a drain plug to the stock pan, can't remember if it's steel or aluminum? Would definitely make the job easier.

 

Stock trans pan is steel.

 

I guess this is a bit old school but on my last three F-150's (80's models) I added a garden hose fitting to one of the heater hoses and flushed the cooling system that way. Is this no longer a thing?

 

I looked at a couple aftermarket drain plugs for pans. You drill a hole thru the pan and put a hollow bolt thru the pan and put a nut on the back and tighten. They have a gasket or o-ring to seal it.... I wanted a welded plug. I have a small wire feed welder so I welded a 3/8 NF nut on the back/bottom of the plan . I used a 1/2 inch long 3/8 NF bolt and put a copper washer on it.. For added seal I painted some pipe dope on the threads and installed..... the factory pan is steel as mentioned.

My 2001 and 2002 both had TEE with garden hose fitting on the heater hose to flush the antifreeze system. Water will not go thru the closed thermostat so I would flush out the top of the fill tank, and out the bottom of the radiator. I did not do that on the 2013. The antifreeze was orange / clear / very clean. I really didn't need a "FLUSH" I just wanted to get the 6 year old antifreeze out and new installed.

 

I think that could still be done, can't recall if the heater fittings are standard hose or those special snap-in clamps.

One downside is now the engine is full of tap water, not distilled, so you would still need to cut it down?