coolant change

im overdue to do my coolant change . the coolant still looks great but its reccommended in the manaul. is this a hard thing to do yourself?

 

simply draining from plug under radiator will get most but not all coolant out

How many miles & year ?

Recently did the '05 w/175K at the time and replaced thermostat too....

Previously had just drained radiator & refilled it

Just use correct type.....Valvoline/Zerex from Walmart is what I use

 

Not particularly difficult to do yourself. There's plenty of videos on youtube that could point you in the right way. I personally follow Chris-Fix's videos on that stuff. The plastic petcock on the bottom of the radiator might get stuck and IIRC, it will accept a 22mm socket to help persuade it to move.

-J

 

Yup i literally just changed out the coolant on my truck yesterday. Used this stuff from walmart ~13$ per gallon, exact same as the ~20$ zerex coolant which will all work fine.


There are two block drains on either side of the motor, definitely do the one on the passenger side as it is EASY to get to via the passenger wheel well and will get ~75% of the fluid in the block (almost another gallon). Driver side block drain is MAYBE good for a quart and is a PAIN to get to.

 

Removing the tire on the drivers side helps, but I don’t think it’s really necessary to drain that last quart. You are replacing a couple gallons already, so it should be more than sufficient.

 

I used a swivel head adapter on my 10mm with a lot of extensions to get at my engine block drain thru the wheel well

 

Takes just a tad bit longer than using the search button.

 

A 22mm or a 13/16" socket fits the radiators plastic drain petcock, I wouldn't use a socket to give it a final tighten. On each side of the engine is a petcock to drain the block, you only need to loosen the petcocks vs removing them completely. You will not need to remove anything from the inner fenderwells. You do not need to remove the tires. A swivel on the socket and a loooong extension makes it easy to do.
Passenger side (I had to turn the phone to get it in there for the picture)


Driver's side (phone turned again, a few inches in front of the starter as you can see the starter on the right side of the picture).

 

For clarification, this is the block coolant drain

You'll be loosening it with a 10mm, not the larger one behind it.

 

a good source of light also helps locating these things and loosening them

 

thanks for the replies. im not too forum savvy so im still figuring out how to search through threads on here

 

I absolutely love it when "they" announce themselves without provocation.

 

Right below the word "alerts", it looks like a magnifying glass.

 

My block drains were super tight so I hit them with PB blaster everyday for a few days prior to doing this job. I def didn’t want to snap those off and break them!

 

I live in the southwest and corrosion is hardly ever a problem. The corrosion "you guys" deal with over there is insane! That would drive me crazy(er). Some of the pictures of corrosion I see on here...

 

and do you guys usually do a flush of the system and use a cleaner in it or just drain the coolant and put in new coolant. ? hopefully the weather doesnt get too bad here and i can do it before snow hits

 

Drain and fill is going to dilute any contaminants pretty well.

 

Yeah I just jacked the truck to droop suspension out to make things easier. Which also helped drain the block more via the more rearward positioned passenger side block drain. And probably why the driver hardly had any come out of it due to it being forward more.

 

I've ran Prestone cleaner on other cars before but haven't figured out what to do with the Tacoma yet.
On another car, I ran the cleaner, and then flushed the system with distilled water a lot. Only because it wasn't cold outside (which could freeze the water), and because that car's radiator drain was in an easy to access location.
So all I had to do was keep it's bellypan off and then drive up on $20 Rhino Ramps when I felt like it, slide an oil drain pan underneath, and drain it before refilling.
It was said that that car's radiator drain would result in emptying about half of it's coolant supply, so by the time I felt it was fully distilled water and no cleaner left, I just added straight undiluted factory coolant resulting in a 50/50 ratio when mixed with the water still in the car.

I believe those cleaner products (such as Prestone) say to run distilled water through the vehicle at least once after using, to rinse out the cleaner.

curious to know how many of these large jugs it takes/requires