Please Help: Replacing radiator fluid

2004 Toyota Tacoma Prerunner 3.4 V6

So here is my story. A month or so ago as I'm driving I start to hear the sound of clanging and rubbing and all sorts of ear piercing sounds. I stopped, opened the hood, and saw my coolant reservoir sitting at the bottom of my engine bay all shredded and torn to pieces by one of my belts. My dumbass probably put it on wrong somehow I don't know how it happened. From observations from working in the engine bay before, there has never been much liquid at all in that tank if any. Never knew what it did or anything as I have never messed with the cooling system on my truck. So, I threw it in the bed and carried on. Days go by and never had problems. Yesterday me and my bud went out to go to Taco Bell and Autozone. Parked at the Taco Bell, went inside and ate, and came back out to a truck that did not want to go anywhere. It started, then died immediately. Not knowing what the hell was wrong, we walked to the autozone we were going to and got what we needed, and realized not to ask them about it because they never know what they are talking about there. Walked back to the truck, and it started right back up. No problems. As we were getting back to the neighborhood, I happened to glance down at my temp gauge on the dash, and saw it screaming out to me telling me that any minute I am going to shut off. It was through the roof. I made it home and opened the hood and steam poured out, and looking down in there is a nice puddle of coolant coming from the hose that should have been going into what should have been the tank I maybe should have been concerned about. I went ahead and ordered another tank, and got some more fluid from toyota to put in the system when it gets here. I flushed the system a few times with distilled water today to clean it out. After this and all my research I am left with a few questions....

1) How do I go about filling it back up? Fill the overflow tank or not? After all the research I have done I am still confused. Could someone dumb it down for me step by step please?

2) Why did all the fluid just now come out the other day about a month later? Did it just eventually all run out? I checked for leaks while running the water through and didn't see anything, but I guess that means there isn't any still....

3) How exactly do you burp the system on our trucks?

Thanks guys. Sorry about the lengthy story. I know I'm an idiot. Please don't elaborate on that. Just need help moving on! The truck just hit 100k anyway so I guess it's time for a flush. Once I get it all up and running again I'm probably going to take it in to get a pressure test of the system just to double check.

 

1. Since youve flushed and filled with distilled water just open the petcock on the rad and let it drain out. This will leave about half the systems water in the block. Id assume since you ordered coolant from toyota it will be in concentrate form, perfect. Just close the petcock and fill the rad with the concentrate coolant and you will end up with a near perfect 50/50 water to coolant ratio. Yes fill the overflow tank with a 50/50 mix, it should have a fill line/mark to the tank to show you the proper amount of coolant to use.

2. Im gunna assume here and say you have an unrelated issue that caused your over heating incident(it wasnt from not having the tank off). The tank is there to capture any coolant the rad purges out in an event that the system gets a little warm and expands the coolant causing it to spit back into the tank. Then when it cools back down the system will suck coolant back into the rad from the overflow tank. Thats what its there for.

3. To burp the system jack up the front end or park on a steepish incline. Make sure everything is filled with coolant, start truck, open the heater valve on your dash to full hot!! Let it run till the system is at operating temp and add fluid if needed. Dont open the rad cap when its hot, let it cool down or youll get a burning hot coolant shower!!

Id purchase a new thermostat too. It could be your overheating problem if its not operating correctly or opening at the temp its supposed to. Could be your water pump went tits up too. But the no start thing is pretty strange and part of the equation id think... did it crank but no fire? No crank at all? Crank but very sluggish/hard to turn over??

If you need more info just ask...

 

Thanks a lot that was really helpful. So I did drain it at the petcock a couple of times after running the water through the system three times. The water was still a little red. This didn't get it out of the engine block? I got the 50/50 mix of coolant. And I don't want it to be more diluted. Should I drain the engine block too? If so where is that?

 

To completely drain the antifreeze -

First drain the radiator from the petcock. Then disconnect the lower radiator hose from the radiator and let it drain. Over a period of hours you will get almost another gallon out of it, most of it at a slow, slow drip. I let mine drain overnight into an empty 1-gallon jug. The next morning that jug was almost completely full.

You could also play around with the block drain that is located on the passenger side of the engine down near the bottom. It's kinda hard to see. I played with mine but was not able to open it so I just did what I described previously.

 

Thanks guys. Got the new tank in today. Pretty sure I got all the fluid out I drained it at the petcock and under the engine block until it wasn't dripping anymore, flushed it a couple times until it was clear. I added new antifreeze but ran out of time because I had to go into work. I only got a little under two gallons in there which concerns me but I only filled it once completely, let the truck run once and filled it again then that's where I ran out of time. Hopefully I can get some more in there by repeating that a couple times because the system holds 2.5 gallons I believe?

Thanks for all the help!!!!

 

Noob question: I can't seem to find the block drain and I don't want to open the wrong thing, If I just drained via the petcock, ran the engine for 10 minutes with distilled water, flushed, repeated etc. would that eventually get all of the coolant out? This is important for me because the guy before me used the green coolant and I bought the Pink stuff thinking that he was still using stock. I guess I could always just buy more green before I get started.

 

Thats what i do is just flush it a coulpe few times. Ive never messed with the drain on the block... going that route youll need concentrate antifreeze not 50/50! And yes use the red stuff.

 

I've heard that if you put the red in after there has been green you can get gelling and it can screw up your system worse than just using the green. Id rather just not risk the issue and use green since that's what's been in it for at least the last 20k miles

 

Alright well I'm on my first flush andbive encountered a strange problem. I drained the radiator, refilled the overflow reservoir with distilled water to flush it, started the truck and it seems as though the reservoir isn't draining into the radiator. Shouldnt it be emptying pretty quickly as the radiator is now devoid of coolant?

 

Its not sucking back into the rad because there is no suction from there being no fluid in the rad that is being cooled. The coolat being cooled is what draws from the overflow. When it gets real hot is when it purdges back into the overflow, then it cools and sucks back in.

Dont worry about the overflow right now. Just make sure its filled with coolant when everything is all said and done...

No worries on the green to red. The PO on one of my trucks used green and ive had no problems, been a few years..

 

Ah OK that makes sense. I kind of realized something like that was happening because after a while it did start to drain into the rad. Must have been the radiator cooling. This is the proper procedure though? Heat it up, let it cool to suck the fluid into the rad? Or do I just pour straight through where the pressure cap goes? This is my first time flushing a radiator so bare with me.

 

I editd my last post a bit.
But yes just worry about filling through the radiator cap for now then fill the overflow lastly!

 

Lol wow that would have been great to know when I started this. Like my Uncle always said, the first time you do something you probably won't do it right. Thanks for the help! I'm learning as i go haha

 

Lol yip we gotta start somewhere!
But yeah just do your flushes however many u wanna do then the last step is filling the overflow and your done!

 

After flushing a couple of times, I'm still getting this Amber colored fluid, could it be that the inside of my radiator is just that rusted? Or is this normal? How many times flushing do I need to do before I see clear water come out?

 

Wow, are you using just water to flush or you using some type of radiator flush type stuff?

 

I used prestone flush but that was like 3 flushes ago. It's a pretty old truck and for all I know it has only been flushed once since it's it came off the line (226k miles ago)

I'm currently draining the last flush and from what I can tell the color is about the same maybe a little lighter than the last 2. At this rate I would say it's going to take 20 more flushes to see clear fluid on the flush.

 

Wehlp ive seen that before using a true "flush" dont know why it does it but it does. Try just using distilled water on your last one and see if its clear or atleast more so. I bet it will be.

 

Oh i read wrong so you only used that prestone stuff on the first flush and only water since?