I've had a bit of a cooling issue for a while (fan stays on pretty much permanently after initial warm up) and I decided to try flushing the system. I removed the radiator cap and petcock and was able to drain almost exactly 1 gallon of antifreeze from the system. I will say that I thought it was running pretty slowly, but it came out in about ... well, I didn't time it, but I'd guess about 5 minutes. Anyway, this is the 1.8L manual, and should contain just shy of 2 gallons of coolant.
Poking around a little more, I read that there is a coolant drain on the engine too. But despite saying "see image", the Haynes manual has no such image. The factory workshop manual does roughly the same, saying "When draining all of engine coolant in the system, open water drain plug on cylinder block. Refer to EM-200." But EM-200 is "dismantling the engine" and doesn't seem to mention this at all.
This raises two questions. First, where is this thing? But second, if I open this and drain the coolant entirely, (how) will I ever fill it back up again? Presumably the reason it doesn't just come out the bottom of the radiator is that the lower thermostat it holding it in the engine, so will I be able to top it off, or will the thermostats also prevent filling as well as emptying?
I found one video on YouTube, but the guy never actually got more than the first gallon out of his radiator, and I don't think he even realized!
A third question is that I've already bought a new radiator (it's the engine coolant pathways I wanted to clean, prior to putting a new radiator on!) both thermostats, hoses, and temperature sender. Will I have a problem filing the engine with coolant after putting this lot on? Clearly if I pull the radiator, bottom hose, and bottom thermostat, I'll likely have drained the engine OK!
All explanations and guidance very welcome.
Poking around a little more, I read that there is a coolant drain on the engine too. But despite saying "see image", the Haynes manual has no such image. The factory workshop manual does roughly the same, saying "When draining all of engine coolant in the system, open water drain plug on cylinder block. Refer to EM-200." But EM-200 is "dismantling the engine" and doesn't seem to mention this at all.
This raises two questions. First, where is this thing? But second, if I open this and drain the coolant entirely, (how) will I ever fill it back up again? Presumably the reason it doesn't just come out the bottom of the radiator is that the lower thermostat it holding it in the engine, so will I be able to top it off, or will the thermostats also prevent filling as well as emptying?
I found one video on YouTube, but the guy never actually got more than the first gallon out of his radiator, and I don't think he even realized!
A third question is that I've already bought a new radiator (it's the engine coolant pathways I wanted to clean, prior to putting a new radiator on!) both thermostats, hoses, and temperature sender. Will I have a problem filing the engine with coolant after putting this lot on? Clearly if I pull the radiator, bottom hose, and bottom thermostat, I'll likely have drained the engine OK!
All explanations and guidance very welcome.