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I have a suggestion for you if you are doing this DIY. You can do a much better flush yourself as you will not charge yourself as much as a shop will. You can put a large stopper in the lower hose with a hole drilled for a hose bib with appropriate fitting. This way you can really do a pressure flush. You can get a descaler that will get that nasty rust and deposits out of the block as much as possible. Remove the sensors as suggested and plug block. I would do a separate radiator flush (you probably know that). I know a guy who didn't disconnect radiator and ended up with clogged fins and a trashed radiator. I would flush several times until the resultant rinse is clear and free of debris. You can filter it with a paint filter to monitor. This is one job I would want to do myself or at least monitor so it is done correctly at a shop. If you have ever prepared for a colonoscopy and had to do the flushing of the colon, then you know how dirty this job could be. You won't believe all the stuff that keeps coming out!
Good luck,
WEK.
Last edited by skullandbones; Dec 18, 2015 at 05:40 PM.
Well, went through serveral flushes and apparently cleaned it out too well, I've exposed a radiator leak.
Murphy's Law in action I suppose, lol.
You're better off finding it now rather than later. Make sure you flush the engine completely before installing the new radiator. You don't want to get any garbage/crap into your brand new radiator clogging it up.
You're on the right track and keep updating us.
P.S. - You may want to check the water pump bearing for any wiggling/flex and pull your water pump after flushing the engine and remove the back plate to inspect the impeller for deterioration/damage. With what you got out of the radiator, the pump could be on it's way out. Plus at that time throw in a new thermostat.
Last edited by Silver96ce; Dec 19, 2015 at 12:02 AM.
I flushed the car several times. Exposed a leak and flushed out at least a metric ****-ton of rubbish from my rad.
Since I'm going full resto/slightly improved from standard, I am on my way to ordering a new rad (3 row higher efficiency aluminium radiator), new hose kit (all hoses that come out of the rad + belt + thermostat), and a new water pump just to be safe.
Just need to get the engine flushed more thoroughly and I'll drop the new goodies in when they are all here.
I went back to look at that gunk that you got out of your cooling system. That's unbelievable! So doing what your doing is probably the best route. Once you get that done, your confidence level for the car should go up greatly. I'm doing a similar resto for my 91 so I can get to a point where my trust in the reliability of the vert goes up to a DD level.
Good luck. You may have slain your worst dragon on this project. BTW: nice looking car.