backflush cooling system

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Feb 23, 2005 | 09:57 PM

MSC

Thread Starter

Senior User

Joined: Aug 2003

Posts: 177

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From: South Carolina

backflush cooling system

I posted this 3 days ago in cooling forum, only got 18 views and 1 reply. Gonna try it here. I need to replace the radiator on my 86 300I6. While I'm there I wanted to backflush the cooling system. Do those "T" in the heater hose kits form prestone work. Seems to me you need a bit more force to clean everything out good. Plus the heater hose ID is pretty small to get any kind of flow through it. Many yeras ago (1970's) I worked in a gas station, We had a adaptor with a fitting for compressed air and water we used to backflush. It was fairly simple fixture. It had a cone (looked like a lawn mower blade balancer cone) that the water hose hooked too with the air coming in on a "Y". Has anybody ever fabbed anything similar to this system. Does anybody sale a tool for this? Did a search on the net with no luck. What could I use to neck down form the rad hose to a garden hose??? A couple of pipe fitting reducers? Compressed air isn't an absolute nesessity but prefered, without it seems like just another Prestone kit. Any suggestion...I'm at a stand still here. Can somebody get me started?

Thanks
Mark C.

Feb 24, 2005 | 06:27 AM

wiseguy

Elder User

Joined: Jun 2004

Posts: 540

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From: Northern MD

I don't like those tee fittings because it's just another place for a leak to occur. You can backflush the heater core by removing a heater hose and inserting a garden hose nozzle into the heater hose. Remove the other end of the heater hose, and flush away. To flush the engine, you could flush through the heater hose connection on the block. I've found that flushing through a heater hose works great.

Last edited by wiseguy; Feb 24, 2005 at 06:30 AM.

Feb 24, 2005 | 07:38 AM

Sycostang67

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Joined: Dec 2002

Posts: 5,491

Likes: 16

From: Kuna ID

Have you ever disconnected a heater hose and run the engine? It doesn't put out a lot of pressure, certainly not near what you get from a garden hose. Unless you have a major problem like block scale or some serious rust in your cooling system, I would just run a good cleaner through it, and those T-kits from Prestone are only $5, it can't hurt. Going in through the heater hose allows you to flush the heater core anyway, just sticking a hose in the radiator hose only really moves water through the block due too the fact the core usually sits higher than the motor.

Feb 28, 2005 | 10:01 PM

MSC

Thread Starter

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Joined: Aug 2003

Posts: 177

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From: South Carolina

Found a backflush gun. It has a stepped nozzle on it, it'll fit heater hoses on up to the radiator hose and has a connection for compressed air. $38 should be here in a few days.