If it’s not RED it should be??

Really though, not knowing is enough reason to flush and change it.

 

keep it green if your rides' an e99, unless you've done injector cups. Then, go red.

 

I use ‘pink’ (Fleet SCA Pre-Charged coolant) on E99’s.

 

Question for you. I need to replace my water pump - its starting to weep. I'm doing water pump (International), thermostat housing (RiffRaff), thermostat(Motorcraft), upper and lower hoses, everything. Would you flush first, then replace all the parts, or would you flush after replacing water pump, hoses, etc but before adding the thermostat? My plan was to flush first, then start replacing parts. But since you have this great thread going, I figured I'd ask. Also, anything else you would replace "while you're in there?" I know that can be very subjective depending on condition of the parts, but any rule of thumb you have? And for the record, I'm switching from green (E99 F350) to the precharged Peak Fleetcharge. Thanks!

 

I prefer to flush with the old water pump. You’ll want to paint your new water pump. Rustoleum 2x coverage spray paint is fine after degreasing (rinse with brake cleaner).

Remove fan, clutch and shroud then loosen water pump pulley bolts before removing the belt.

After cleaning shroud and fan, I like to remove the SHARP edges using a 60-100 grit sanding sponge. This is because I’ve been cut by these damn things too many times.

‘While you’re in there’ consider cleaning EBPS tube. If I think of something else after coffee starts working, I’ll post it later!

Good luck and start a thread about your project. We like pics!! Feel free to reach out if you’ve got more questions.

 

@SkySkiJason, I'm doing this flush now on my truck. Thinking of skipping this step:

It seems like the previous steps would get all the old stuff out. Did you still see some color draining with the above step?

 

Sometimes. If you feel like system was pretty clean, you can probably skip this. I’ve done a few that were so full of junk that it took a few cycles to get it all out.

 

How long can you safely run in mild weather with just water in the cooling system?

I am going to try and do the water pump, hoses, thermostat, and oil cooler on Saturday. If I can drain and flush on Thursday will I be fine to drive ~125 miles on just water in the system. The goal would be to free up some extra time to get more done on Saturday if I can flush on Thursday.

 

You’ll be fine. Just baby it to keep EGT’s low just to be safe.

 

Thanks for the write up SSJ! I finally got around to doing the job yesterday. Embarrassed to say I purchased all the supplies planning to do this a year ago during plant shutdown but ran out of time before returning to work. This is a long process as I suspected so my procrastination was justified.

I went with the ZEREX nitrite free ELC. Don’t remember why exactly since it’s been so long, but I think it had to do with availability and cost. Ended up getting a 6 gallon case from Summit Racing which I think was cheaper than 4 gallons of other stuff through Amazon and basically the same price as buying 4 individual through Summit.

Our water is really hard and has a lot of iron so I opted to do some extra distilled water flushing. I also decided to use the house supplied water which has been ran through our softener to reduce the iron and hardness.

I pretty much followed Jason’s directions in the process. I’ll add my specifics in case it might help someone else in the future.
1- pulled drains
2- removed heater hose from pump and blew out the heater core.
3- ran tap water through the hose and port on pump until all traces of green was gone (I think this helped me a bunch and would have saved time had I been more confident in my results)
4- removed the thermostat housing, those bolts were scary. Be careful and go slow! I worked and worked them but still had a it of galling of aluminum that pulled out on the bolts.
5- installed modified open stat
6- ran hose in degas and started engine but this wasn’t really working out for me and all was flowing clear (I think I purged almost everything in step 3)
7- closed the drains, filled the system with tap water, and ran engine for a few minutes
8- opened the drains, all was clear. 🤷‍♂️
9- removed heater hose, blew out, flushed with distilled water, blew out, flushed again. Flushed some through pump as well. Probably did a gallon or a little more.
10- closed drains, filled with distilled (the open stat really helps with this), ran engine
11- repeated steps 8 & 9.
12- repeated steps 10 & 11 again due to our iron water and wanting to make sure all the “salted, softened” water was out.
13- installed new motorcraft thermostat with used aluminum housing I had from an old use parts purchase. Factory bolts are 20mm long, I used 25mm with the new housing.
14- installed new around the belt upper hose
15- installed the 1 hose “Ranger Valve”
16- put 1 gallon of ELC into the heater hose
17- put 3 gallons into the water pump.
18- buttoned up the heater hose
19- added distilled water to degas tank, maybe 1.5 gallons
20- ran engine FOREVER to try and get it to burp. Never did burp but after getting the stat to open from reving, the degas level dropped some so I could add more to tank. Did this a few times until there was a total of 4 gallons of ELC and 2 gallons of distilled installed.
21- took it for a drive with loose cap. Nothing abnormal happened, no burping, no level drop.
22- need to check the level now that it’s cooled back down.

Note: a transmission funnel worked very well on the heater hose and was also used with a spare piece of hose on the pump.

In total I used 16 gallons of distilled water for the flushing and final fill. Yeah overkill.

Photos of part numbers and such below. Thank you SSJ for sharing your method and knowledge with us! It’s much appreciated sir!



And 2 jugs were missing from this photo 😱



Thermostat and Gates upper radiator hose


Shush SSJ, I know the clamps are opposite. 😂

OEM bolt

Bolt used for thicker aluminum housing

 

Too bad we don't have the "heart" reaction here. I used to flush Vanagon cooling systems basically the same way. While being half the capacity of the 7.3, they still had the engine in the back, cooling system in the front and two heater cores that had to be cleared of old coolant periodically. The entire system from bottom to top was a little over 4 gallons to get everything filled up and air purged. Removing the thermostat and installing a gutted one just like the one you have pictured was the only way to be sure. Put a garden hose into the degas tank, remove both block drains, (one of the expansion plugs in each cylinder head had a bolt in it for use as a coolant drain), crank up the water hose and run the engine at fast idle for a half hour or so. Crude, but it flushes every molecule of the old stuff out if you give it enough time and water.
Kudos to a great job here and you're good for a decade of service with this vehicle now.

 

Very good to see your work here. I did not know about the one-hose Ranger valve (Excursion valve?), and was thinking they were two hose designs - going to look into the 74857. I have very much enjoyed having the pex valve shutoff in place for better summer cooling, but would have liked early morning heat at times without opening the hood to operate the manual valve.

 

Keep in mind the vacum valve only shuts the water flow on MAX setting.

 

Depends on which vacuum line you tee in to. There is couple different ways to do it.

 

Yes it was all thanks to Y2KW57’s digging and information. It’s been over a year but I think I used the 7.3 excursion number and searched online until I found something that crossed over and looked the same. Seems like just a straight up Ford number search wasn’t working for me. Ended up with the Four Seasons valve because it’s the one my local part store could order in. https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...l#post19448315



Correct. I’ve been considering an electronic valve to have full control but I’ll start with the Excursion valve on the Max AC line and go from there.



https://www.partdeal.com/omega-elect...-31-60027.html