I blew a heater hose and lost all coolant. I was wondering since it basically flushed the whole system do I put ford gold coolant beck in or something else. Also do I use full concentrate or 50/50 and how many gallons after draining the radiator. Thanks!

 

It MIGHT have flushed the entire system. There are two plugs in the block that technically need to be removed to fully flush the system properly (by properly, I mean emptying the system of all fluid).So before adding coolant back to the system, don't make the same mistake I did and remove BOTH plugs. The one on the passenger side requires removal of the starter, the drivers side is pretty easy to get to. If I remember right, you need an 8MM allen key to remove it, but it's been a few months since I did mine. Once the system is completely empty, you have two options. You can 1- properly complete a flush by looking it up on the forums or Youtube or 2- buy four gallons of your preferred ELC and send it. Personally, I would go through a full flush just for the peace of mind and once finished use CAT ELC in my system. Other people run other coolants, but I get an employee discount through the local CAT dealership and think they have done a great job engineering their coolant. 50/50 mix is fine if completely drain the system, if not I would recommend adding a bit of full concentrate. Really no way of knowing how much concentrate without using a refractometer or the like, but you can guesstimate.

 

You can never drain ALL the fluid/coolant out of the system. Removing the block drains helps, but still quite a bit is left in.

 

Drain radiator (degas bottle at the minimum mark - get out 14.75 quarts or 3.7 gallons)
Drain passenger side block - get 3.25 quarts
Drain drivers side block - get 2.5 quarts.
Drain lower radiator hose - get 2 quarts.

Total drained fluid - 22.5 quarts or 5 5/8 gallons (apprx).
The total system holds 28.5 quarts. 7.125 gallons

 

thanks for the clarification Mark. I guess I misunderstood when it was explained to me!

 

That is why the recommendation is to put in 3.5 gallons of concentrate after a Distilled water flush, then "top off" with distilled water.

You can never get the system to a 50% concentration after a water flush simply by adding 50/50 fluid. Always around 1.5 gallons of water still left in the system.

Don't get me wrong, it is best to try to get it all out, and removing the water pump could probably get a bit more, but IMO it isn't worth THAT MUCH extra effort.

 

Definitely save you money, although you might have to look around or order online to get ELC concentrate. All the parts stores want to sell you 50/50 for just a couple dollars less than concentrate, and it's just half distilled water that you can add yourself to the concentrate.

Flush it all out with a couple of distilled water cycles, drain the block. buy 4 gals of coolant, pour 3.5 in the truck. Buy 4 gals of distllled water, top off the truck. add what's left to your remaining half gallon of concentrate to create a gallon of 50/50 for future top offs.