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Where are coolant drain plugs located?


Darek
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I am flushing coolant. It is written in the manual that there are 3 drain plugs:

- under the radiator

- near the water pump

- at the right side of the cylinder block.

 

I can't find that last two drain plugs. Could you help?

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They may not be the kind of plugs you are thinking about. They could be the "knock-outs". Not sure, and someone else may say otherwise. But take a look. If they are, you just need a hammer and like a flat tip screw driver to twist them to pull them out.

 

Jose
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Don't open the drain plugs on the side of the block. That's going to create a huge mess. In fact you don't have to open any of the drain plugs on the engine at all. Drain the coolant through the radiator until the radiator is empty, then close the radiator and start the engine for a few seconds or just crank it to operate the water pump, more coolant will show up in the radiator which you can drain again. Then you can refill the radiator and the engine with coolant again through the upper hose. That should be a pretty good coolant exchange.

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The drain plugs are really there for servicing the engine on a stand. When you have to basically strip the engine down to the bare block, that's when you open the drain plugs. If you ever touch those things, the threads on them are sealed so you will have to apply sealer to the bolts again and torque them down to specification. These engines can be emptied out just by spinning the water pump and refilled through the upper return hose without even opening the thermostat.

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You are absolutely right but unfortunately i found the water pump plug earlier and removed it.

It was a very big mistake. The bolt is mounted in a hole depth of 10 cm. When I unscrew the bolt then it felt into canal below.

It took about four hours to take it back and reinstall. I had to remove radiator cover and other things...

At the end I applied thread sealant and corect torque.

Tomorrow I'll fill it with water and check for leakage.

 

Once again to everyone - do not touch the plugs in the engine block.

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Do use the air relief plug at the back of the engine at the center of the firewall. It is covered by a black rubber cap.

 

What would be the best method to do a DIY flush? Drain, fill with distilled water, drive around a few days, repeat until it drains clear? How do you get the proper concentration of coolant if the system is 100% water?

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Don't put in water at all. Just keep draining and refilling. Eventually your coolant will be clean. :lol:

 

The air relief plug doesn't really do much. It's completely optional if you want to open that. There is a jiggle valve in the thermostat that takes air out of the engine by itself. Just fill the overflow bottle to the max and see what happens to it after about 2 or 3 cooling cycles. It's going to go down! Top it off until it stops going down and you're done.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Once again about flushing the coolant system.

When I flushed mine there were about 5 litres of coolant from radiator and about 1 litre in reservoir tank.

So 3 litres remained somewhere in the engine block.

 

I filled radiator and reservoir tank with new red coolant (6 litres) and after few days when I opened radiator cap there was old green fluid. Apparently new fluid went to the engine block and old fluid went to radiator.

I am not going to flush it again but how to drain engine block? As for me there is no use in replacing coolant if it can't be replaced in 100%.

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You should just drain the radiator and refill it every few years. This way you are always running good coolant. There is no other way to go about doing it without making a mess. Even if you can't replace it 100%, it's still better to replace some than none. Generally, coolant lasts a long time before anything starts happening to it.

 

Back in the older days of crappier vehicles, you had to run coolant in the winter and water in the summer because coolant would eat through the seals and stuff like that. Not the case anymore.

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  • 3 years later...

Is it necessary to use nissan's anitfreeze or is there any equivalent that can be found at autozone? What is appropriate for the 3.5L engine?

Absolutely not...all you're going to do is over pay for the same exact stuff that you could get at autozone...I always use peak straight antifreeze not the 50/50 then mix it with distilled water

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

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Absolutely not...all you're going to do is over pay for the same exact stuff that you could get at autozone...I always use peak straight antifreeze not the 50/50 then mix it with distilled water

 

The 50/50 stuff is convenient, but not worth buying unless it's less than half the cost of straight antifreeze (because the rest is just water).

 

The 3.5L takes a little less than 2.5gal of 50/50 mix. When I do it, I buy 1gal of straight stuff, 1gal of distilled water, and 1gal of 50/50. I'll use up the antifreeze and water first, then top off with the 50/50. That way, when done, you've got the remainder in a single container, ready to go (I carry it on road trips, just in case).

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