Hi guys
I own a 2001 Maxima GXE with 31000 miles. I was wondering when(every how often) I should clean out the radiator? Any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

 

Every 30k miles if you drained/flused out the system that would be ideal. But many just do a drain and refill.

Dixit

 

this is from expereince even though people on here will argue it.

to be on the safe side FLUSH IT!!
i bought my car used and it had never been flushed. it started overheating. it had gotten so bad that a flush wouldnt even clean it out.
i had to buy a whole new radiator.

 

The anti freeze should be changed every 30K, I did mine at 45K, no problem found.

 

did you guys see a difference with the needle on the gauges?

 

I swear, I don't think the water temp needle ever moves.

 

mine sure did!! when it was clogged, it would go all the way up after a 5 minutes of driving.
you wont notice the needle till its to late

 

well that sure is comforting....

 

like i said before
GO GET IT FLUSHED before it is to late

 

I changed my coolant and I tried to take the thermostat off but the screws were all stripped holding it in. I was very nervous after when my heater wouldn't blow cold for about 20 minutes. Someone should do a How-To on the proper way of changing coolant. Taking out the plugs thermostat and flushing the entire system.

 

How Do You Do A Flush?

 

Run water through the cooling lines to remove all old fluid. I'm going on what it says in the Clifton manual. This f@cking thing is bull$hit. It covers years 1995-01. Most of the crap doesn't even come close to covering a 5th gen.

 

i heard that you can buy a bottle od cleaner. so its drain, run water, close screw and refill.

 

i drained mine then ran car for a few minutes and poured water in and let it run through
you have to do it long enough so the thermostat opens up so the fluid in the engine block drains too. you will know when it opens up from all the fluid.

 

Your supposed to take the thermostat out of the housing that way the car doesn't have to heat up to normal operating temp before the thermostat opens up. This is what i attempted but the screws to remove the thermostat were stripped for some reason. Not sure if the screws come like that from the factory or someone did this before I had the car.

 

"supposed to"? according to who?
trust me, if the car is just ideling and you keep water running through it, it will not overheat or hurt anything. removing the thermostat is a pain, trust me i had to replace mine.

 

According to Clifton's $hitty manual as well as a repair CD I have. All that work and I still wasn't able to get the thermostat off the housing.

 

like i said, its a pain!!
when my max first start overheating i thought it was the thermostat so i replaced that. not alot of room in there to work. when that didnt help i did a flush but didnt want to remove it again so i just kept water running through it.

 

When you removed your thermostat where the screws holding it in a Phillips head or a weird looking screw. My screws looked to be a stripped out Phillips.

 

mine had bolts holding it in!! 1/4 inch i think

 

It was 10 mm bolts holding it on the engine block. When you remove it and look at the thermostat itself there are 2 screws which hold it to the bracket. those are the 2 screws I'm talking about.

 

if you remove the housing the fluid will drain. you dont remove the thremostat from the bracket. if you replace it, it is the whole assembly (thermo + bracket)

 

Negative. You keep the thermostat in place and turn on the heater full blast so the radiator flush goes through the entire cooling system. You want the engine to reach normal operating temperature when flushing the cooling system. I have never seen any instructions anywhere that said to remove the thermostat.

 

Not backing up what the Clifton manual says but that's what it says. It's not year specific except for a few things. It says to remove the spring mechanism so that it stays open and doesn't need to wait for normal operating temp. I went by the book because no one answered any questions I asked about what's supposed to be done.

 

I never use aftermarket manuals to work on my car so I am not familiar with them. There is nothing in the Nissan service manual or on the bottle of radiator flush that says to remove anything dealing with the thermostat. At least you know for the next flush job that you don't have to mess with the thermostat.

 

That Chilton manual is definitely full of shyt. For one thing, you CAN'T hook up the cooling system with the thermostat removed, at least not on 2000 models.... the thermostat is an assembly at the front of the engine (weird location, eh?) with the engine block coolant inlet pipe protruding out...