Hi all

about to replace my upper and lower radiator hoses on my dc2 and just wondering if there is anything to look out for?

i searched and someone briefly mentining draining the coolant?

is this neccessary or is it all sweet to just unbolt and put the new ones on?

cheers

 

In order to swap your radiator hoses, you need to drain the coolant first. The upper radiator hose can be pulled off without draining coolant, but the lower cant

 

Upper hose you can swap out fairly quickly with a small mess of coolant.

Lower hose is a bit more tough. Plan on removing the Intake and draining the coolant from the system first.

 

anytime you take out a coolant line...coolant will come out..

 

ok thanks for the responses guys

can anyone point me in the direction of how about to go in draining/ chanign the coolant??

any site good??
cheers

 

I turned the little white tab on the bottom to drain mine out. The clips were a pain to put back on for me with my crappy *** pliers.

 

anyone got any more detailed answers???

 

do this when the car is cool:
to drain coolant:
1)look at the bottom middle of the radiator and you'll see a little white plastc draincock
2)use some pliers, or your hand, and loosen it until coolant starts spilling everywhere (you'll need a big pan to catch all the coolant)
3)Take out your coolant overflow, to the left of the radiator, clear resovoir, and dump that coolant into the used coolant container also, then clean the overflow out and fill it back up to the "high" mark and reinstall it
4)Once all the coolant has drained out, take off the hoses, all you need to do this is either a pliers or a screwdriver and possibly a blade to cut the hoses off the rad. and housing on the head if they are really stuck
5)While your at it you should also replace the thermostat
6)locate where the lower rad. hose connect to the motor and first unplug that sensor and remove the ground from the housing and then take off those two bolts holding the housing onto the motor
7)clean the mating surfaces on the thermostat housing and install the new thermostat w/a new rubber gasket
8)reinstall all the hoses you took off in the same way they were before you started and tighten all the clamps (not to hard, but not too soft, you don't have to worry about this if you still have the factory non-worm-drive tightening clamps)
9)Fill up the coolant slowly in the radiator, this does take a bit since it has to be added so slowly
10)Start car w/rad. cap off
11)watch the fluid level and keep adding coolant until car is warmed up and the temp gauge is back to about the middle
12)at this point crack the bleeder scew open that is located where the upper rad hose connects to the head and let the bubbles come out of their until it's all liquid, make sure to keep your fluid in your rad up while doing this, beware, don't open too far or you will get alot of hot coolant everywhere, including on yourself (this step is only applicable to obd1 and below motors, obd2 has no bleeder)
13)reinstall the rad. cap, check the coolant level in a day to be sure, and check for leaks, your done, very simple if you didn't break anything (don't overtighten bleeder or you'll break the housing like i did, it sucked but luckily i had the new one and a new gasket for it, also don't overtighten the bolts for the thermostat housing)