I finally followed the write up on flushing your coolant, and DAMN I have to tell you the sludge and grime that came out of there!!! I wish I had a digital camera to show the series of milk jugs slowly changing from brown / black to almost totally clear ( before I ran out of jugs ). Wow, I know my engine is happier after today.

 

Where is that write up, i need to do that.

 

Your car thanks you, as does your wallet

 

There is a great write up under the maintance sticky on the Nissan coolant, and the reasons on why it's worth the extra few $$. Basically get 5-7 gallons distilled water, jack your car up enough to get a bucket under it. Remove the driver side splash guard under the ar, then position bucket under drain ****. Open drain ****, drain radiator. Then close drain ****, fill radiator with straight distilled water. Run car for 5-10 min with heater on full tilt ( gets all the gunk out from the heater core ) Repeat till hair has reached desired body and shine... Errrrrrrr just do it till the water runs clear, will take 6 or 7 gallons, meaning 8 or 9 repeats. Sometime while your are doing this remove the overfill res. clean it with bottle brush, solvent, midget and a pick whatever, but CLEAN IT, all the crap in it will get into your engine! Replace overflow res. On the last repeat fill with 100% coolant, this will mix and get just about the correct mix. Drive 5 or so miles get the mix going good to shake out any bubbles, check level in both rad and res tank, fill as needed. Let new clean motor be happy. Takes a few hours, but can be done in the sun and a 6 pack. Enjoy

 

It wont let me say draincock!!!! LMAO!!!!!!

 

I bought a Prestone coolant flush 'kit' and did it the easy way

 

Hey dude, thanks dude. Got a 16 hour trip ahead, think that will be a good idea. Hey i saw a thread about draining the engine oil and flushing it with some type of additive, anyone remeber this/know where the instructions are? im missing them in the stickies somewhere...

 

I think CyMax and I attended the same school of automotive repair.

 

With my old car, I had it about 4 years before I decided to change the fluid. No black color, it looked A OK to me. I used the Prestone coolant flush and followed the directions exactly. After I used that crap, my heater core got a hole in it. This led to a delicious odor and film on my windows. This was the main reason I got rid of my baby. I cant be 100% sure if that caused it, but now with my Max I am very reluctant to do a coolant flush.

 

Which is why I used only distilled water, just lots and lots of it.

 

While I am a proponent of using distilled water, I don't think it would have mattered as far as the hole in the heater core goes. More than likely, the previous owner used some type of stop leak and the flush got rid of it. Or perhaps, the core was rotting from the inside and and plugged itself. Regardless, flushes commonly have adverse effects on cooling systems that are old, neglected, and falling apart. Keeping your cooling system clean and maintained at intervals can curb the chances of failure.

 

Sounds right to me, my fiance's parents owned the car before giving it to me and they never had a problem with it. So I'm sure it was rotting from the inside out. Hell, that whole car was rusting to pieces (except the engine ). And that's probably what happened, I unclogged something keeping the whole thing together. So, now should I just let my Max be and not change the coolant or should I stay on top of it from now until eternity?

 

just did a raidiator flush now i am looking the write for flushing the oil. Can anyone point me to the stick for flushing the oil. thanks

 

Flushed mine today.

 

I took mine to Jiffy lube for the coolant flush ($59) after I replaced all the radiator hoses ($50 for 3 hoses at Nissan dealer) I have a write up of replacing radiator hoses in the general maint. link.