Subtitle: Fear and Loathing in the Garage Emboldened by the fairly painless engine oil and filter change conducted a week or so ago, I decided to go to phase 2 of the annual liquids change and do the coolant. (Phase 3 would be the brake fluid). Seems the coolant change is hardly mentioned in the OM, and even the shop manual talks only about replenishing coolant, not draining it. Hey, I'm a problem solver--no sweat. Here's the step-by-step: 1. Locate the radiator drain plug. This cannot be seen from above, but can be located by touch. It is on the far left of the radiator facing the car and beneath the air duct. Perhaps if you took out the spare tire and removed the shroud, it could be seen from above and more easily reached. 2. Jack up the car and put it on jackstands. 3. Take off the forward underbody panel. Mine has 7 screws to be removed. I first took off the panel to its left, not knowing what I was doing, and found it led to a dead end--the blower motors for the heaters. 4. With a flashlight you can see the radiator drain plug now. Put a 14 mm box end wrench on it. 5. Switch on the ignition and open the heater valves. This may or may not have had any affect on my results. I did not start the engine. 6. Put some newspaper down on the garage floor in anticipation of a few spatters. 7. Position a pan underneath the car, more or less under the drain plug. It will be seen that it hardly matters where you put the pan. 8. Take the cap off the overlfow tank back in the engine compartment. 9. From above, the handle of the wrench is visible, and I can get enough leverage to break loose the drain plug. There is no nipple on which to put a hose--the plug simply unscrews by hand and. . . . 10. Coolant gushes out. Every-fokkin-where. It rushes along the bottom of the spoiler and drips off all along the front of the car. More pans! More newspaper! LOTS more newspaper. 11. When the flow diminishes, jack the car up and remove the jackstands. With the front of the car now level with the rear, more coolant flows out. Then jack up the right rear of the car, and more coolant flows out. 12. Put an air pump at the mouth of the overflow tank and pump air into the system. Alternatively, you can blow directly into the tank and get the same result--more coolant flowing out. 13. Time to replace the coolant. Return the car to level. 14. Replace the drain plug at the radiator, from above. 15. Mix Prestone anti-freeze with distilled water (in my case rainwater) to a 50/50 mix. Is this the optimum mix? I've no idea, but it seems to be the standard to prevent corrosion. 16. Locate the radiator bleed plug. It's at the right top of the radiator facing the car and is a black, flat knob you turn by hand. 17. Remove the bleed plug. 18. Pour coolant into the overflow tank until. . . . 19. You hear something splattering up front. You expected the radiator to bleed AIR, maybe blow a few bubbles, but NO--it's shooting out coolant like a fokkin carotid artery, and you failed to put a pan under the car there. More pans! LOTS more newspaper. Plus you can't get the damn screw back in until the flow abates. Now there's coolant all over you and also on the paintwork. Not to mention the green pond on the garage floor. FOK! 20. With the bleed screw back in, add more coolant to the tank until it's 2 or 3 inches below the top of the tank. 21. Start the car, make sure the heaters are working, and move the car from the contaminated garage bay to the carport. You leave behind a swamp of green, soggy newspaper. 22. With the engine still running you wait for the thermostat to open. In the meantime the cap is off the overflow tank and it starts to. . . overflow. All over the carport floor. Fokkit. I'm out of newspaper. Put the cap on. 23. Carefully crack open the bleed screw. You don't have the stones to take it off entirely. It dribbles some hot coolant down into the radiator vanes and onto the spoiler, and across the spoiler onto the floor of the carport. You don't care. As the radiator gets hot, the coolant on the outside of it vaporizes. The fans come on and the vapor is blown all over the front of the car. FOK! You shut down the engine and run for the Quick Detailer. 24. You think you're finished. Except for the cleanup, which involves hosing down and sweeping the garage bay and carport, keeping an eye on the dogs and cats so they don't commit suicide. 24. Not so fast. You've gotta jack up the car again, put it on jackstands, and screw on the underbody metal plates. 25. Next day with the engine cold, you check the coolant level in the overflow tank and it is miraculously at the correct level--2 inches or so below where the bottom of the cap meets the mouth. 26. Time to do some math. According to the OM the cooling system holds 5.8 gallons. You put in 4.5 gallons, and some of that bled out. So there's maybe 1.5 gallons of old coolant still in the system. You just didn't have the fortitude to stick a hose in the overflow tank and flush the system, given the amount of coolant spreading over the floor. Does it matter? 27. You are able, looking at the coolant that made it eventually into milk jugs, to see that you captured 3 gallons in the jugs with presumably another 1.5 gallons being spilled. AFTER-ACTION REVIEW 1. There's got to be a better way to do this. Perhaps taking off additional underbody panels to reveal the heater hoses. Wonder if a heater hose could be uncoupled from the main coolant line and controlled so that coolant goes where I want it--in a receptacle. 2. I need a lift. 3. I didn't open the coolant drain on the side of the block nor the bleed screw near the thermostat. Would doing either or both have made any appreciable difference? 4. Regarding phase 3 of the annual fluids change program--I'm not ready for prime time. I can imagine brake fluid spraying all over the paint. This is a job for my favorite mech. Finally, I'd welcome any constuctive comments and useful observations from veteran 328 hands. Cheers, Mark
Mark: As I was driving my 328 just today I thought about changing the coolant. Thanks to your comments above, NJB in Columbus is going to get some more business soon! Sorry for your bad luck.
Great summary!! I am sorry for your hassle, but you made it very entertaining to read. I have changed the antifreeze in my 328 once since I purchased it. I am fortunate enough to have access to a garage pit so mine was not quit as messy, but it was still messy. I took a lot more of the bottom panels off than you did, but it still splattered all over. I will be interested in hearing from others to see if they have a better system.
At least you can ... make the rest of us ... laugh about it. Been there. The lift does help access things. It doesn't help with sideways mounted plugs. Now I know why Mitsu places the EVO's optional oil temp sensor in the oil drain plug. Nobody will ever drain oil from that place ... twice. Once is enough. (Spews sideways, neatly missing the huge pan placed beheath the plug.) For draining: Open all the vents at the top -- radiator bleed, themostat bleed, overflow cap. Then find the low point of the system, and open there. In a front/back arrangement like the 328, there are two low points -- radiator and block. (On the EVO's oil system, I think it's the oil cooler lines, judging from the amount of oil that didn't get out of the drain plug and filter.) For filling: Seal everything. Crack open the radiator top vent -- if it's a stock vent, you don't need to remove it, just cracking it open will allow air (and a bit of coolent) to get out. Then add coolent to the overflow tank. The trick is to not pour it in all at once. A little at a time, letting it settle. Eventually, some coolent will start coming out of the vent. Close the vent. Then comes the tricky part: Getting the rest of the air out. Fill the overflow. Crack open the radiator vent until only coolent comes out. (Yes, it will dribble down the radiator.) Repeat at the thermostat vent. Start engine, open heater cores. Repeat bleeding. Do again in a week. The alternative is to put a hand pressure pump over the overflow tank. Pump up to a couple of psi (doen't need to be much). Then bleed at radiator and thermostat. Repeat. That took care of it on my 328. Being in HI, you miss one alternative to newspaper. In the Northeast, they spread tons of sand on the roads when it snows. The winter car picks that up and tracks it into the garage (mixed with the snow buildup on the car). Every spring, I sweep it into the corner of the garage. It sops up spills quite well -- coolent, oil, gear oil, etc -- it picks up pretty much any fluid. The only bad part is that you have to evacuate the cars from the garage while sweeping -- the garage air fills with dust for a while. In HI, you could get some sand from the beach -- but it's pretty moist compared to the "snow sand", so you'd have to dry it a bit. It won't pick up spills if it's already full of ocean.
I recommend that you have the cooling system 'power flushed' rather than just flushed with the pressure from a water hose. Especially if it has been a long time since the cooling system has been flushed. You would not believe the gunk a power flush will get out! Any good radiator or auto repair shop will have a power flusher.
DGS, Thanks for the tips. Sounds like I'm not done yet--maybe more bleeding is necessary. I'll drive the car down to Hilo today and back and check the engine temp, then check the coolant level again. Re the sand: not much of it on the windward side of the Big Island. Mostly volcanic rock. There is a black sand beach in the Waipio Valley. . . but I'm thinking kitty litter. Preferably unused. Cheers, Mark
