Changing anti-freeze on a 1.25 Fiesta Zetec
Discussion
I'm shortly going to be carrying out 10 year service on my wife's car (I plan to change cambelt, filters, plugs, brake fluid, etc).
The cooling system has never lost any coolant, still has a "good s/g" on an anti-freeze tester and I understand that the "Ford Pink" coolant is supposed to have a 10 year corrosion inhibitor lifetime.
One question is: "how necessary is it to change anti-freeze to ensure no corrosion"? Another is: "what is likely to corrode and cause problems if the anti-freeze is not changed"? (It's an all aluminium engine.)
I'm thinking that changing the A/F is going to add quite a lot to an already expensive parts bill and could be a PITA to change (bleeding heater etc).
Any comments?
The cooling system has never lost any coolant, still has a "good s/g" on an anti-freeze tester and I understand that the "Ford Pink" coolant is supposed to have a 10 year corrosion inhibitor lifetime.
One question is: "how necessary is it to change anti-freeze to ensure no corrosion"? Another is: "what is likely to corrode and cause problems if the anti-freeze is not changed"? (It's an all aluminium engine.)
I'm thinking that changing the A/F is going to add quite a lot to an already expensive parts bill and could be a PITA to change (bleeding heater etc).
Any comments?
ts out BUT make sure u keep the heaters on wen u fill it bk up as there can get air m8 told me after lol hope this help 30min jobNot sure if this is of any help to you but i changed the coolant on the other half's 1.3 Endura-e Ka a few months ago and it was a piece of bun.
There was a little plastic plug at the bottom of the radiator on the passenger side which was very easy to unscrew. The trick with draining coolant is to use the filler cap to control the flow of coolant out the drain hole.
I did have a bit of a worrying moment when it wouldn't take anywhere near the amount of coolant it's supposed to hold but i hadn't let the car run long enough to open the thermostat to start pumping the coolant round the system.
FYI, I bought 3 1 litre bottles of Halfords Advanced Antifreeze (it was on 3for2 at the time) and it works great. It's pink in colour and it says it meets Ford requirements, I added about 2 litres of water and that was a decent ratio imo. See here : http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/...
Hope that is of some help.
There was a little plastic plug at the bottom of the radiator on the passenger side which was very easy to unscrew. The trick with draining coolant is to use the filler cap to control the flow of coolant out the drain hole.
I did have a bit of a worrying moment when it wouldn't take anywhere near the amount of coolant it's supposed to hold but i hadn't let the car run long enough to open the thermostat to start pumping the coolant round the system.
FYI, I bought 3 1 litre bottles of Halfords Advanced Antifreeze (it was on 3for2 at the time) and it works great. It's pink in colour and it says it meets Ford requirements, I added about 2 litres of water and that was a decent ratio imo. See here : http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/...
Hope that is of some help.
Thanks for the replies.
It was quite an easy job in the end.
I bought a 5 litre container of Halfords Advanced A/F and a 1 litre bottle (cooling system is 6 litres in all).
Draining was easy as there is a drain plug at the bottomw left side of the rad. I didn't quite get all the old stuff out as the refil only took 5 litres (there must have been some coolant left in the engine block).
Refil was easy too. Bit of an air lock in the heater but easily cured by removing the top heater hose, waiting until a/f came out (with the engine revved), and then pushing it back on.
That'l do for the netx five years now
It was quite an easy job in the end.
I bought a 5 litre container of Halfords Advanced A/F and a 1 litre bottle (cooling system is 6 litres in all).
Draining was easy as there is a drain plug at the bottomw left side of the rad. I didn't quite get all the old stuff out as the refil only took 5 litres (there must have been some coolant left in the engine block).
Refil was easy too. Bit of an air lock in the heater but easily cured by removing the top heater hose, waiting until a/f came out (with the engine revved), and then pushing it back on.
That'l do for the netx five years now
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