Changing coolant Q, and other musings

[Aurora40]

I put a new battery in the car, an ACDelco 75-6YR. And I drained out the oil, but couldn't find a local filter I trusted (dealers were closed, so it was a Purolator that was questionable as to whether it was the right one, or a Fram) so I'll change the filter tomorrow.

I had wanted to drain and refill the coolant. I'm not a flusher as I don't like the idea of tap water getting trapped in the engine. Anyway, my Helm manuals haven't arrived yet, but I figured all GM radiators have a drain on the side. This one seems to have two holes in the shroud, one on the corner and one more where the radiator seems to be, the hole being almost blocked by some frame rails. Anyway, I figured the blocked one was the place, and there appears to be a stripped out plug there... Is this the correct place? If so, I guess I'll have to try to remove it and get a new one. :-\ I did suction out about 1/2 a gallon from the upper fill tank, and a little under 1/2 a gallon from the overflow tank. So at least there is a little fresh coolant in there. Man, you can't get plain old green silicated coolant anywhere now. It's all Dex-Cool, or non-Dex-Cool "extended life". I got some Prestone non-Dex-Cool extended life stuff.

A few things I noticed were the oil dipstick sure is hard to remove without getting oil everywhere. And removing a panel to get to the battery always makes me wonder. I mean, the car isn't that small in overall size. Yet the interior is small enough that the seats practically don't fit in it, there's no trunk, and you can't even pull the battery out without removing body panels. How the heck did that happen? Lastly, my front GS-C's are mounted on the wrong sides. They roll the right way, but are on the wrong side. I'll pull the rears and check the manufacture date. If they are more than about 7-10 years old, maybe I'll just get all new Supercars instead of paying to remount and re-force balance them.

 

[tomtom72]

Hi Aurora40, If I remember correctly the petcock is on passenger side, my manuals are at my tool box. The manual says to drain & refill w/hose & run & repeat till drainage is clear then refill. There is a STG publication that I bought at the ZR1netRegistry store & it has a cooling sys flush protocol... Drain sys of coolant, remove thurmostat from housing, re-assemble housing loosely so as to create a leak, run hose water into sys(hi-fill tank) to fill & keep up with intended leakage, run engine @ idle while eyeing temp gauge so as not to exceede 1/2 of the first 1/4 way on temp gauge. Do this till drainage runs clear. Remove heater hoses & flush. Re-assemble sys. knowing 3.7 qts remain in sys from flush proceedure & refill w/distilled water + anti-freeze to weakest possible freeze protection pertainent to your climate and add waterwetter. There are threads on CF/ZR1 section also.

On oil filter most use Mobil 1 filter or OE GM filter. On the tires there are opinions about rubber gets hard before most use up all useful tire life. I put GS-D3 on mine to replace the OE tires(9300 miles) still on mine. Boy what a difference, the car needed new tires not traction control. My tires had good tread life left but were dried out & hard, that's where the problem was.

The battery thing is a hoot ain't it? You get used to it and as I don't have a lift I took off both sides to clean, ploish & LSP application them. It was better than laying on the ground.

I'll post this & after work I'll get my manuals & do some research for you, but hopefully some else will come along that has this info in memory, I'm too new to have it memorized! Tom

 

[Aurora40]

Thanks Tom. So it's a petcock, not a removable screw? I'll have to take another look. Do you recall there being two holes in the shroud? One is on the corner and one is more towards the middle and a couple inches in from the side. Now that you mention it, I recall it being a petcock on my '87, not a drain plug. Or at least I think I recall that...

I had to change the battery on my '87 so I knew the panel had to come off. But man, who designed that?

I'm also familiar with rubber hardening from my 1987. It had some Gatorbacks that must have been 10 years old. I put about 45k miles on them with almost no tire wear (I was poor at the time). They were so hard they would have lasted forever until they just split open or something. They were a nightmare in rain. I figure Supercars would be good, because I don't want a decent-mileage tire. I'll have to get new ones every 5-7 years just from age anyway, so I may as well get one that'll wear down that fast (figure maybe 2k miles a year or less). I'll see how old the rears are, and also how much it'll cost to remount and balance the fronts since they are one wrong and compare it to applying that cost to four new tires.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[tomtom72]

Hi Aurora40, You are very welcome! I've been thinking on the petcock thing and on mine it is a plastic wing nut affair. It is out in easy sight if you are under the pass side of rad looking up at that corner. However my prod # is 2233 car built in late April I believe if memory serves. I don't know if early vs late means anything in this instance like with the hose clamp deal??

Later today I will go get the manuals and re-read and post anything I think will help you out in this situation. I strongly suggest the registry store for this stuff cause it is not in the big thick manual or the supplemental manual on the motor. These, I think, are the ones that Rob talks about in the post about vacuum diagnostics. They are photo copies so the pictures are a bit fuzzy but the text is clear as a bell.

I agree on the tires vs time vs wear vs cost. I cheaped out & went with the D3's cause they are less $ & are said to be a bit better in the rain. I doubt that either have long wear for the tread life, sticky tires and long tread life don't seem to go together too much!

Good luck & enjoy your new toy. Tom

 

[Aurora40]

Later today I will go get the manuals and re-read and post anything I think will help you out in this situation. I strongly suggest the registry store for this stuff cause it is not in the big thick manual or the supplemental manual on the motor. These, I think, are the ones that Rob talks about in the post about vacuum diagnostics. They are photo copies so the pictures are a bit fuzzy but the text is clear as a bell.

Don't worry about it, I'll figure it out. My manuals should be here in the next day or two. Why would the service manual not mention how to drain the radiator? That seems an odd thing to not be in there.

What registry store stuff are you talking about? Under "ZR-1 Manuals" they have nothing listed. I'll re-read Rob's secondary vacuum post again.

 

[tomtom72]

Hi Aurora40, Sorry for the mistakes on my part. The regular ser manual has the drain & fill & drain & fill procedure. The STG (Service and Technology Group) publications have the thing about the loosened thurmo housing and the lean anti-freeze mix. The Registry store must be out of the re-prints. When I ordered mine it had a note about quantities being low! Sorry I guess they ran out. If they become avalible again they are worth the $20.00! If not let me know maybe I can figure a way to scan these into an e-mail attachment & send them to you. I admit it may take some studying on my part but I'm sure I would eventually figure out how to put them in an e-mail if the need comes about! I'm not too computer savey but what the heck I'll try if you need the stuff.

Tom