Coolant questions (one is probably dumb, the others maybe)

[regent]

Sorry, I am not prepared to answer this without researching; hope someone who is in that industry may chime in.
Thanks

[confused_al]

can someone confirm that Volvo has never used an orange coolant?

That is correct, Volvo coolant you buy from dealer is blue and factory filled is yellow. It looks you have wrong coolant in your car.
BTW, make sure you use distilled water to mix in order to avoid minerals in tap water ...
In case you want to flush the orange coolant out, this is the discussion might interest you:
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =1&t=33057

[confused_al]

Another thing is that petcock is not very strong. If you break it then you need a new radiator...so I would rather take the lower hose off.

[re_buchanan]

With the helpful info from the folks here and a little bit more contemplation, I finally got back to this on Sunday and thought I'd share my experience:

After finding the block petcock valve, I realized that simply opening the valve would make a monumental mess. But I also noticed that the valve was barbed:

block petcock (anno).jpg (37.25 KiB) Viewed 2558 times

So I went to the hardware store and picked up a section of 1/2" I.D. clear vinyl tubing to direct the flow out of the valve and into my container - it worked like a champ.

Since I was looking to remove as much of the existing coolant as possible, I figured it would be a long day. And it was. I flushed it with this procedure: raise the car, drain from the block, lower the car, drain from the lower coolant hose, run the car to "burp" it (adding water as necessary), drive around to get the car up to temp, and repeat. I did this until what was coming out was indistinguishable from the water I put in (indistinguishable both visually and according to my specific gravity tester.) Then, I did it again just to be sure. I probably did this six times, pushing at least 8.5 gallons of distilled water through the system.

Regarding the Cascade dishwasher cleaner method to which confused_al directed me: I had seen this and though I'd be leery of doing it, it makes a sort of sense. But I decided to forego this as my cooling system has never had any coolant in it for more than 3 years and what came out of my first drain was very clean (wrong, but clean.)

Though I'm sure there are some molecules of dex-cool still floating around in my coolant, the quantity should be so low as to be inconsequential. That said, I'm tempted to do a partial repeat of this process again in a couple of months, just to be sure.

Advice from my experience:

• 1. get the vinyl tubing to use with the block drain - it made for a very clean process
  2. per confused_al, drain the radiator by removing the lower hose, not by opening the radiator petcock (seems kind of ghetto, but that valve is disappointingly flimsy)

Thanks,

Ron

[re_buchanan]

For anyone stumbling upon this prior to changing his/her coolant, here's the block petcock:

Block Petcock

block petcock (anno 2).jpg (29.41 KiB) Viewed 1899 times

Here's the radiator petcock highlighted

Radiator Petcock

radiator petcock (anno).jpg (26.21 KiB) Viewed 1903 times

But, that thing is flimsy - you want drain by detaching the lower radiator hose:

Lower Radiator Hose Clamp

lower rad hose (anno).jpg (25.5 KiB) Viewed 1903 times

[re_buchanan]

I just realized something I failed to do: I never turned on the heater during this process.

I'm freaking sick to my stomach.

Obviously, I'm going to have to repeat some of this process. If I know how much the core holds, I can probably calculate how many drain/fill cycles I need to do.

Anyone have any idea how much coolant the heater core holds?

[FjordMoCo]

I believe the heater core is permanently open to coolant flow, with cabin temp controlled by mix flaps in the heater box instead of a valve like in older cars. Your method should have gotten all the old stuff out.

[re_buchanan]

I believe the heater core is permanently open to coolant flow...

That would be a relief.

Can anyone confirm, or express more certainty, that this is the case?

Thanks

[JDS60R]

Yes - The heater core is always open. Turn on the heat now to assure you do not have any type of trapped air.

[re_buchanan]

Yes - The heater core is always open.

Thanks - this place and you folks are the bomb.

Turn on the heat now to assure you do not have any type of trapped air.

I will definitely do this, but for my edification: if the core is always open, how would running the heater do anything other that just blow air across the core?