How To Perform A Coolant Flush On Your Ford Vehicle

[Music] all right today I'm going to show you of my method for doing cooling system flushes on Ford vehicles this is the exact method that I used at the dealership over the flush machine because the flush machine basically has put 16 quarts of new coolant through the systems what goes in goes out and that's all it does does an agitator doesn't get that sediment from the bottom of the radiator doesn't do anything like that now all you need for this is a simple garden hose and a drain pan I don't do no cutting into the heater hoses nothing crazy like that I never recommend that that just introduces an aural leak point to the cooling system so we're gonna go ahead and get started here it's a very simple procedure but there are a few steps and a few precautions you want to take some we'll walk you through it right now alright first things first we wanted to relieve a cooling system pressure you need to find your radiator cap on top of your radiator or as in most port systems they have an external separate coolant bottle that's pressurized call it the gas bottle like this one we're gonna want to remove the cap slowly you're gonna want to start this procedure on a cooled engine and we'll put the cap to the side now what I like to do is a pre flush of the cooling system with just water and that way we get most of the lime and all our debris out of the cooling system and they put the cooling system flush chemical in there and then we fill a water and that way a mix is properly and goes throughout the whole system instead just sit in a DI gas bottle so in order to do that we need to drain the old coolant out first so the air drain bucket out so we can drain into there and catch all the old stuff so it can be recycled and your drain gonna be on the driver's side or the passenger side it depends on your model and year and on the f-150 sits on the passenger side and always be in the bottom obviously it'll look something like this one right here it's got a nineteen millimeter head on here in case you need to use a socket on there I usually use a plier just open them up and I put a hose on mine so that it goes down into the bucket instead of draining all the frame rail gets kind of messy let's open that up and let it fully drain out of there and once the cooling system is fully drained out into the coolant drain pan I put the hose into the radiator neck or the V gas bottle over there and put a little bit of water through there to flush out any sediment before you close it back up and fill it water okay so once the rest of that water drains out of there put your drain back and tighten it by hand it's good enough for now we're gonna put the cooling system chemical in there now we use vc-1 it's a premium cooling system flush from Motorcraft and we're gonna pour that in first and then we're gonna fill the cooling system the rest of the way with water regular old hose tap water so we can fill it up and we can start running the engine and get that stuff circulating through there now once you have it filled back up with water start your engine and watch your level on there because it's bound to drop with some air pockets in the system once it stabilizes the level in there put the cap back on nice and tight and then we're gonna run the engine for a while till it gets to operating temperature and then we're gonna give it a couple of good revs of the engine so we can get that coolant really swirling around there and that chemical to break some of the segments up in there and debris and now that we're at operating temperature we have heat coming through the vents make sure you have heat coming through so we know the coolant is flowing through and there's no big air pockets we can start revving the engine in park I say between 2,500 and 3,000 rpm and that really get the cool flown through there and of course it's important to that temperature up because then the thermostat is open and we have full flow through the block and everything in there try really stir this seven up and break up the rust in there and scale and the rep like that every once in a while is good kind of agitate sit in there and do is off and on let it idle here and there for about ten minutes you let it idle for a while come back to it and then we're going to start flushing out that chemical and all that broken up sediment now after that 10 or 15 minute cleaning process of revving the engine every once in a while idling and revving and agitating let it cool off a little bit turn the engine off let it cool off a little bit and then we're going to pull the cap off on here very slowly it's gonna be pressure it's gonna be hot we're gonna put this side again and then here comes a dangerous part we need to put a regular garden hose in the coolant bottle or radiator neck we're going to have it opened up so that it constantly is filling it till hole closed just like that a little bit and then while the hose is flushing we're gonna come over here very carefully and pull that drain out of there all the way out of here I'm a very hot and once you get your drain out of there it's fully flowing you get your hose constantly filling we're gonna start the engine and we're gonna let all that new water to go through there and try to flush out as much as possible if it's too hot to get to you can just open the drain let it fill through the engine will eventually will cool down enough where you get down in there won't be so hot like it was before with us revving the engine and such now during this process you're just gonna want to leave the engine at idle filling draining idle there it goes I was able to get down in there engine cool down enough with the fresh cool water coming in to actually allow me to get down in there we have full blown off a little bit more a forceful flow and that's why I pull the whole thing out of there just make sure this whole time that you watch the temperature on the gauge and the cluster and that you make sure this bottle is always filled and it is basically let it run an idle until you're happy with what's coming out of the radiator make sure it's nice and clear and then once it's nice and clear let it run with the hose and it's still for longer then there - and then we get to turn the engine off okay we're gonna turn the engine off I'm gonna leave the hose in there oh wait turn the engine off and let it finish and then we're going to turn the hose off with the system completely drain out what I'll do just to flush that bottle out a little bit more is I love the system totally drain now turn that hose off and then we're gonna turn that hose on that nozzle full blast on there and we're gonna get a lot of high pressure inside of that bottle to stir up all that garbage in there and flush it out also give it one last power flush get it all around in there break it up [Music] blech right now now once system is fully drained all the old water out of there put the drain back in there and tighten it up and then we're going to start filling the cooling system what you have to remember is that there's parts of the cooling system especially the cylinder block that have more water and it than anything right now and we need to equal that out we're gonna do a fill of about 60 or 70% of coolant and 30 or 40 percent water in here so we can even that out when it mixes with the water straight water that's in the block right now it's always a good idea obviously to premix where you start pouring it in there and then we're gonna start it let it run at an idle and took its operating temperature and constantly wash that bottle it's just gonna keep her chin the air out of there and you don't want it too low [Music] and what you're satisfied it's let out all the way put your cap back on - your coolant levels of the esmad mark on here and then go for a road test to make sure that the engine is not overheat and that you have plenty of heat inside the cabin they're coming through the vents that'll tell you there's air pockets in the system or not

Channel: FordTechMakuloco

Views: 1,317,171

Keywords: 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, coolant flush, motorcraft, coolant, Internal Combustion Engine Cooling, Ford Motor Company (Automobile Company), Vehicle (Product Category), flushing, chemicals, overheat, no heat, air pocket, blown head gasket, Automobile (TV Genre), Auto Show (Event), F150, ford taurus, Ford Edge (Automobile Model), Ford Super Duty (Automobile Model), proper method, bleeding, Ford (Automobile Make)

Id: RWIXa50R9bo

Length: 10min 11sec (611 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 25 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Keep up the Ford stuff! I have a 2010 f150. Showing how to do anything I could do myself on it will help me so much. Are shocks hard to change on them?