Coolant change
 

Hey guys I've been looking around on these forums for a while and first time poster. I have an '11 f250 and I recently had my egr deleted and my buddy who did it for me put a generic coolant in there (not knowing that was not the correct coolant) besides the specialty coolant after he drained the old coolant out. I would like to get the correct coolant in there and flush the whole system because I'm at 108,000 miles and I fear that I will cause damage by running the incorrect coolant in there. Can anyone tell me what I need to do to flush the system correctly?

Any suggestions on what I could do? I really don't want to take it to the dealer because of how badly they overcharge in my area

Dump it. Fill with distilled, run it and dump it.


Use an airlift tool so you don't get a bunch of air.

There is a flush chemical that you can get from Ford too... And process. Basically what senix said. Distilled water + flush chemical (It's either VC-1 or VC-9 cant remember right now). Flush out with just water, refill with the correct coolant.

You must use distilled water. Not tap water.

The dealer had to do it on my 2011, because they added the wrong additive to my coolant at 13k miles...

What coolant did he use? Dexcool is supposedly the same as specialty orange Ford coolant... If he used the green stuff, then that is definitely the wrong stuff.

Honestly I can't remember off the top of my head but he said it was universal. I'll ask him again. It's a red/orange color if that means anything. Is there anyway I can do it without an airlift tool?

You can, just takes longer to purge. You would fill thru the degas bottle.

Ok great. So what about filling the secondary bottle, would filling the primary system also fill the secondary?

two separate systems.


Did they mess with the secondary as well?

Yeah man. What happened was my egr went bad and I lost a lot of coolant and both needed to be refilled and it got filled up in both systems. I've been monitoring my coolant and oil temps. I'm still having normal temps and they are about 5 degrees apart from each other. Everything else went good but it just has the wrong coolant.

Geez...you are going to have your work cut out for you.


I'd be inclined to quit driving it till you get it changed over.

Yeah I know. It's a mess, and I'm trying to keep my driving minimal. Hoping to get it done in the morning. Do I need to drain and flush them separately or all at once?

I would do the primary then the secondary since you don't have the tool.

Ok sounds good. How much distilled water would you think I need to completely flush it? Do the drains drain all of the coolant or will there be some water left in there?

There is always "some" water left in there. If you do it according to Ford - It is why there is an additive to clean it out - you RUN the truck and then you drain it out, refill with JUST distilled water, RUN the truck again, then drain that out, refill and you are good to go. The water left in there won't matter.

You can cut Ford Speciality Gold coolant with water - put given the amount of premix you'd put in the water left in the system won't matter.

According to Ford the primary coolant system is 27.8 quarts or close to 6 gallons. The secondary is just over 11 qts or just over 2 gallons.

Thanks for the help man. I was wondering because if I used prediluted, would there be enough water left in the system to throw off the concentration.