Draining the cooling system?

[Flea4me]

I was going to drain my cooling system the other day....checked my Haynes manual to find out where the drain on the block is....It said to remove the 2 block drains at the front of the engine.....

Anybody know what size hex is needed for those draim plugs? And what kind of sealant would be best on them when reinstalling...

[Huffer]

You can drain your coolant from the lower radiator hose. No need to drain from the block.

[jospgut]

And if you want to work less and not get that dirty on the lower part of the radiator, there is a plug and it drains it all but slowly

[Flea4me]

Thanks for the info.....yes I knew about the drain plug on the rad.....but thought those plugs on the block would allow it to drain faster and also get ALL of the old coolant out.....will do the lower rad hose route.....and flush the system....

[Huffer]

The coolant plugs on the block only require a 1/4" drive ratchet...and they are in there REALLY tight. Typically people only remove them if they are installing a block heater.

[ouch1011]

If you park the car so the front of the car is lower and pull the thermostat out, you'll pretty much get all the coolant out of the engine.

[Flea4me]

Thanks Kevin......thats actually not a bad idea......might even be a good idea to throw in a new stat....just to be sure......with my luck it will fail in a couple of weeks!!!lol

[jey]

The coolant plugs on the block only require a 1/4" drive ratchet...and they are in there REALLY tight. Typically people only remove them if they are installing a block heater.

On my EJ22 the plugs on the bottom were definitely a hex plug and way bigger than 1/4". I grabbed the biggest hex socket I could find at Sears and it was still too small. My conclusion is these are not the plugs to use for regular cooling system service - if you service the cooling system at the normal interval you will be ok, even if some coolant is not completely replaced. I think the block plugs only need to be opened if you have missed or are severely overdue in the service. Course you can also fill and drain a couple times to minimize the old coolant left in the system...

[StatGSR]

as mentioned, pull the thermostat. that will pretty much let the rest of the coolant out of the block.

[Huffer]

The coolant plugs on the block only require a 1/4" drive ratchet...and they are in there REALLY tight. Typically people only remove them if they are installing a block heater.

On my EJ22 the plugs on the bottom were definitely a hex plug and way bigger than 1/4". I grabbed the biggest hex socket I could find at Sears and it was still too small. My conclusion is these are not the plugs to use for regular cooling system service - if you service the cooling system at the normal interval you will be ok, even if some coolant is not completely replaced. I think the block plugs only need to be opened if you have missed or are severely overdue in the service. Course you can also fill and drain a couple times to minimize the old coolant left in the system...

Odd... I am 90% sure when I went to install a block heater the instructions said to use a 1/4" or 1/2" drive...I never did install because I couldn't get the plug out.

But I could be totally wrong too - it was several years ago.

[jey]

Yeah it appears what you need is a 14mm allen:

http://www.subaruparts.com/catalog/suba ... heater.pdf (http://www.subaruparts.com/catalog/subaru/blockheater.pdf)

[Grafton]

drop the t-stat pulling those plugs is a hell of a lot of work for the few ounces of old coolant that will be left in the block if you just pull the t-stat, and yes the plugs are 14mm allen, i had to install one on my build...

if your replacing old coolant you should be flushing with distilled water after draing the old stuff out anyways

[impreza_GC8]

Leave those plugs alone, those suckers are practically welded in and usually only removed for rebuild. Even the dealer will drain from the rad fitting, so do it that way.


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