[urq] Re: how to make sure that the cooling system bleeds correctly?

[Michael S. Williams]

At 3:53 PM -0400 6/26/03, Huw Powell wrote:
>>hey all, im about to switch the fan switch at the bottom of the
>>radiator, and since im gonna have to drain a significant amount of
>>coolant to do this, im curious as to how i can be sure that there are
>>no air pockets in the cooling system when i fill it back up...
>
>If you have the new one ready, in one hand, with a new washer/gasket on
>it, and move quickly and smoothly, you should only lose a few cc's of
>coolant, btdt on my 90.

well, i did it... it was a little tough at first cause as i was
unscrewing the old one, i found that the old gasket was stuck to the
radiator... so i lost almost as much trying to push the old one
against the threads while trying to pry loose that gasket as i did
when i full on switched the sensors...

but the new sensor, in combination with the new fan i installed (it's
from a vanagon...thanks javad!) works great!

and, when i redid the dash, what i did was that, instead of letting
the cold-hot climate control lever control the ac fan (my ac has been
removed fromthe car), i plugged that switch's leads into the ac
switch from the updated dash...  so now, i have full, manual control
over that... which is pretty nice, to be honest...  but actually,
from driving around in the city yesterday in 90 degree heat, the low
speed fan worked perfectly and the car never got too warm...

and yes, my temp gauge reads quite low... the fan switch that i
installed was the three prong 94/102 fan switch... and i think 94 is
something like 190F, right? well, when it comes on, my temp gauge is
reading only 170F... so all those times when mycar was boiling over
while only showing 195 degrees means that it was boiling over at the
right time...

grr... so i do need to find a temp sender that'll work... <sigh>  oh
well, i do know that once it hits 180 indicated, and is rising, that
i should turn on the fan switch myself...

>
>But anyway, if your radiator has a bleeder on top, it should be easy to
>purge to the air, since it will be in the radiator.  Letting the engine
>warm up with the bleeder opened slightly should pressurize that air
>right out.

unfortunately, it doesn't have a bleeder top... it's one of the
original (probably IS the original) metal ones... i suppose that i
could create a bleeder on the top of it,but i dunno if that is
necessary...  there's a small 3/8" line going from the top of the
radiator to the coolant bottle...  is that, effectively, a bleed
screw?  it wouldseem to be, since that is too small to really flow
much coolant as far as cooling, but wouldseem to do well with letting
the air out of the top of the radiator...

>If you do lose a lot of coolant, top it up from every angle possible
>first (expansion tank, through bleeder hole, through top hose into
>engine/head, etc.)

fortunately i didnt... just barely enough coolant to cover the bottom
of a bucket...

thanks huw, and everyone else for the help :)

the car is definitely progressing...
--
MswmSwmsW

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