holidaychicken
Well-Known Member
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The reasons it says to put on a lift is so you can easily remove the undertray and also access the cylinder block drain plug.
I have never managed to find the block drain plug although looking at the page I posted its behind the starter and above the drivers side cv joint.
The coolant tester looks like your easiest and cheapest first step as this will tell you what you have in their currently.
I managed to undo the radiator drain plug with my hand with the undertray in place by sliding my arm down as I posted earlier although the undertray isn't difficult to remove, just a lot of screws.
If you want a practice without too much commitment I would let the car cool and remove header tank cap.
Slide my arm down the right hand side of the rad and undo the pink tap and catch the coolant coming out and measure how much comes out and what colour it is. If it's less than 8 litres then you wouldn't have enough space to put concentrate back in at roughly 50% concentration as the system holds 17 litres total although some coolant can be diluted down to 33%.
Close the drain tap, top up with water and run the engine to bleed using the method shown by keeping topped right up while waiting for bubbles to stop coming out the bleed screw and keep it running until the heater works and the level is correct and temp gauge is stable.
If that all goes well, you could repeat but this time top up with correct coolant.
Ideally you want to drain the block to do this properly but I don't know how to tell you to do this.
If I am honest my advice to you will be to take it to the garage as I don't know what you are capable of or even what tools you have so don't want you to kill your new toy for the sake of £100.
When you have had it a while and you know your way around it better then you will feel more confident working on it
Good luck
I have never managed to find the block drain plug although looking at the page I posted its behind the starter and above the drivers side cv joint.
The coolant tester looks like your easiest and cheapest first step as this will tell you what you have in their currently.
I managed to undo the radiator drain plug with my hand with the undertray in place by sliding my arm down as I posted earlier although the undertray isn't difficult to remove, just a lot of screws.
If you want a practice without too much commitment I would let the car cool and remove header tank cap.
Slide my arm down the right hand side of the rad and undo the pink tap and catch the coolant coming out and measure how much comes out and what colour it is. If it's less than 8 litres then you wouldn't have enough space to put concentrate back in at roughly 50% concentration as the system holds 17 litres total although some coolant can be diluted down to 33%.
Close the drain tap, top up with water and run the engine to bleed using the method shown by keeping topped right up while waiting for bubbles to stop coming out the bleed screw and keep it running until the heater works and the level is correct and temp gauge is stable.
If that all goes well, you could repeat but this time top up with correct coolant.
Ideally you want to drain the block to do this properly but I don't know how to tell you to do this.
If I am honest my advice to you will be to take it to the garage as I don't know what you are capable of or even what tools you have so don't want you to kill your new toy for the sake of £100.
When you have had it a while and you know your way around it better then you will feel more confident working on it
Good luck
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