One thing I learned from talking to a repair shop once, and it worked great for me, was to just skip the rad drain plug and just pull the lwr hose. Fast, easy, and don't have to worry about stripping the plug or anything. Can make a little mess, but after doing it this way a few times you'll get the hang of it to do it w/out a mess.

Also, if you do it this way, keep in in mind that if you just idle the car a bit between drain/fills then you don't have to put the hose all the way on...just put it on like 1/2 way or less, and it holds water just fine while you're just idling in the garage. Of course, put it on all the way when finished, but it makes it easier pulling the hose off/on since it sort of sticks to the plastic rad outlet thingy quite a bit.

 

Yeah, I have heard that.....but that also involves removing those f***ing plastic splash guards under there which I avoid at all costs.....those things are the biggest PITA ever......

 

LOL, yes, they are a pain, but it's less risk/pain to me than messing w/ the rad plug. I've heard too many stories of them going bad/leaking and at least for me, it's just easier to pull the plastic trim and do it via the hose.

 

86k on my 02 and the radiator finally cracked. The plastic tank cracked at a seam in the plastic. I am replacing it with an OEM all metal (Aluminum) and dumping the plastic tank version. Dealer wanted $400 for a new radiator. Found it online for less than $200.

I plan to use either Toyota Red or Nissan Green. This thread was a ton of help. Thanks!

 

Heya Chuck.

Did you ever flush your coolant beforehand? I'm at 80.5k. Using the Toyota Red. I should probalby flush it this year. It's been 2 years since I did it.

 

Flush?? Nope....one part of the preventive maintenance that I neglected. That could explain the crack or it could have been the Nismo rad cap.

I picked up a gallon of the Toyota Red. $ 22.00 a gallon here in C-bus. Nissan Green @ a local dealer was also $22.00 a gallon. Toyota dealer was closer.

I'm replacing the radiator tonight.

 

Ah nice. I have the same cap.

Yeah the coolant was pricey. I think I paid around that too.
I'll hit you up if I need to replace mine. You replacing your hoses too?

 

No...everything else looked fine. The tranny cooler lines are a pain. Took me 7 gallons or so to flush the entire system.

The radiator is pretty easy to pull. Once you pull the fans....it's a cake walk.

 

Ah yeah I remember I had to flush quite a few gallons of distilled water when i did mine.

Good to hear that it's easy to do though. Did your boyz help out?

 

What's the worst part of removing those? Is it just time consuming, or tricky? I have a slow antifreeze leak I can't readily see, so I was planning to take those off to find it...until I saw this post. In 35-45 degree weather, I might let a pro look for it instead, if it's that frustrating.

 

It's getting those snap in fasteners to go back in like they're supposed to without breaking any.

 

Heh. I know exactly what you mean from working on my "old" 240sx. Different area of the vehicle, same kind of frustration! Somebody else seems to have had that problem already, as there's only a couple remaining. Sheesh. Guess I'll have to be extra careful.
Thanks for the quick response. Sigh, will get started on it in the morning.

 

Sure np. Good luck

 

I'm a newbee here, but this what I did. Run the car , put the heater on , drain the coolant from the bottom ,while the car is running with the heater on I put the hose on the radiator flushing the coolant for at least five minutes. turn off the car & let the rest of the coolant drain from the radiator ,close the the plug from the bottom of the radiator & fill it up with the 50/50 antifreeze(prestone) drive the car & tap it off later.

 

Hayward Nissan in Hayward, CA has it for 19.99

I went to Carquest for Toyota Coolant - they wanted 39 USD for it.

I recall having paid 30 or so bucks 2 years back.

 

http://www.whitfieldoil.com/download...ineupChart.pdf

The Extreme Life coolant seems to be the kind that will be a good substitute for OE. Napa stores stock this coolant.

 

you can buy it at nissanpartsonline dot net for $17-$18 per gallon - just ordered myself.

at the local dealer (NJ) it costs around $31.

 

I have a 98 Max original rad that has been flushed every two years with the Prestone regular stuff. I want to use the Toyota Red, so should I be more diligent in clearing out the old Prestone?

Drain the old anti-freeze and substitute with distilled water or
How about running your hose continuously until it appears all clear?

And once clear, its assumed 50% capacity is already just water and just topping up with Toyota Red brings to about 50/50?

 

Just a note you guys can buy nissan coolant online from courtesyparts or any nissan dealer that sells parts online. You'll never find it listed as "coolant" or "antifreeze" though so you have to look it up by part number 999MP-AF000P

its listed as "LONG LIFE ANTIF"

courestyparts.com sells it for $18ish
so does infinitipartsusa.com

if you are just flushing with distilled water and then filling the radiator with 100% antifreeze, you just need one bottle.

 

after doin the entire drain system to put the toyota red antifreeze does it have to be 50/50 because i always pure antifreezez alone

 

If you follow the directions on this site for flushing the old antifreeze out, then you only want to use the pure antifreeze and not the 50/50 blend of antifresze with water. If you were to use this flush method and then use this 50/50 blend with water, you would only have about 25% antifreeze in your cooling system and you want to end up with 50%. The flushing method described here gives you almost pure water when you are done flushing and then do the final drain (to make room for new antifreeze). And if you then install pure antifreeze, you will have about 50% of each in the system.

 

Just replaced my radiator on my 2003 Maxima. I filled the radiator with distilled water (about 3/4 gallon), disconnected Upper hose from the radiator and plugged with a towel. I ran the engine with the radiator cap off for about 15-20 minutes hoping the old antifreeze would drain out the hose from the engine. I got steam but nothing else. The temp. guage inside the car eventually went to about half.

My question:
Shouldn't the water pump force out the old stuff and I can just keep replacing the water level with distilled water? When it runs clear, I was going to add anti-freeze until I had added about 3.5L. This would effectively give me 4L distilled water and 3.5L antifreeze.

 

Just keep refilling and drain it with distilled water. Once the water is clear, add 100% antifreeze, not the premix one. And you will have close to 50/50.

 

Just bought prestone it says its silicate and borate free

 

Hey guys i asked this question over in the wrong section so i am asking you guys. My problem is that when i drive my heat works perfect but when the car is idle it starts blowing out cold air. I did some research on this forum and i think i might know what the problem is. If im not mistaken i have to check the coolant level first. If its low i add more in. Then i have to see if the reservoir cap is good and not letting air in. If that dont work then do a coolant flush. My question is how exactly do i do a coolant flush? Is it just opening the drain plug on the radiator and filling with water until clean or are there daring plugs on the engine block (i want to do a full flush)? Is it the same as a reverse flush? How do i do both of those things? Please help. Thanks again.

 

All of the answers to your questions are in this thread. But you have to look for them. Turns out that I took the best advice from this thread and made a Word Document with all of it pasted there. Rather than point you to specific posts in this thread, I will paste my summary below. I should point out that when I did my flush, I needed 9 gallons of distilled water (not the 8 recommended). There is also a post that says do not do any blend other than a 50/50 with water. Finally, when I did my flush Honda was no longer selling pure antifreeze (only a 50/50 premix), so I had to pick between Toyota and Nissan antifreeze. The Toyota was cheaper than the Nissan, so I went with it.
Silver
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More importantly, flush the system REAL well with distilled water first, then drain the entire radiator and fill with 100% antifreeze. This guarantees you the 50/50 recommended mix.

http://www.motorvate.ca/mvp.php/502
This site provides directions and pictures for changing. Do not mix the antifreeze as directed here, follow directions below.

Steps Recommended by Bill99:

- See directions at motorvate for opening heater valves.
- Drain existing water/antifreeze out of radiator.
- Re-fill with distilled water.
- Run engine for several minutes till heater gets hot.
- Let cool a few minutes.
- Drain.
- Re-fill with distilled water.
- Repeat until water is clear and the "soot" collected in your bucket from draining the radiator is almost nil.
- At that point, drain and re-fill with antifreeze of your choice.

Radiator on VQs holds 4 quarts. System capacity is 8 to 9 quarts. That's close enough to 50/50 for me. I recommend 8 gallons of Distilled Water if it's your first flush.

From kgallerie:

I did a flush last night using the flush and fill method here. Couple points:

I went and bought Toyota red antifreeze ($21.99/gal = sucks). The normal Toyota red which I bought is not premixed, however the "extended life" Toyota red will cost you over $30/gal. is premixed. So I guess they are charging 10 extra bucks for half the antifreeze I bought 10 gallons of distilled water.

Started draining and filling, but I noticed that the heat was not getting hot during the first few fills even after 10 minutes of idling. So I decided to take the car for a little ride and less that a 1/4 mile down the road the heat got plenty hot. Doing this for each fill will greatly reduce your time to get the distilled water circulating. I would fill, drive 1/4 mile up the street and back, then let it idle for a few minutes, then drain.

Everything was going fine until I went to remove the drain plug one of the times and the Philips head teeth on the plug stripped (%#$@!!!!!!). Just a word of advice, don’t tighten the plug too tight between drains and be careful not to strip the soft plug. Dealers do not stock the drain plugs. Luckily I got it loose using a larger Philips head, and it had enough teeth to finish the job. I have one on order though and will replace it later this week.

It took a good 7 drain-and-fills to get it pretty clear, but I did one more because i am **** and it came out crystal clear. So ~8.5 gallons of water did it for me.

When calculating how much antifreeze to add to the distilled water in the block ('03 maxima), the book says the system capacity is 8 1/8 quarts including reservoir. The reservoir is 7/8 quarts, which leaves 7 1/4 quarts in the radiator, hoses and engine block. Therefore, just over 3.5 quarts of antifreeze (non premixed) will give you a 50/50. So that’s what I put in and topped off with distilled water. Then filled the reservoir (cleaned and empty) with a 50/50 mix.

 

First off Thank you Silvermax_04. Couple of questions. I do not take the drain plugs off the block for a full flush? Any information on the reverse flush (i think it has something to do with the heater core). Also when i click the "Changing Coolant" button on the motorvate site it does not open anything. It just redirects me to the same exact link you sent me. Thanks again SM.

 

Sorry about the Motivate link. When I last used that link it went directly to the article on changing antifreeze. The home page lists this as Aritcle 5 posted on July 21, 2002. But that home-page link also no longer works. Looks like they have dropped the article but not the link citation on the home page. I have copied some articles with pictures on maintenance into Word Documents, but I did not do that for this article -- so I can't send you a personal copy -- sorry.

According to some posts on this thread, the drain plugs in the engine block are hard to get out. So the beauty of this method is that they don't have to be removed. You just keep flushing with relatively cheap distilled water until it comes back clear. Then drain the radiator completely and add full-strength antifreeze. Much easier than taking out the plugs and relatively cheap.

I don't have any info on the "reverse flush." Sounds like it needs some sort of power to do this - some sort of reverse pump.

 

Is anyone sure if it is normal to have the level in the visable be at the minimum? My coolant looks to be clean but looks low with respect to the minimum and maximum lines.

Thanks.

 

You are supposed to keep the level in the overflow container between the lines of maximum and minimum. When it gets to minimum, you should add more fluid to get it back up to maximum. If you only add water, you will change the ratio of antifreeze/water and increase the temperature when the mixture freezes. Thus, it is best to add a 50-50 blend of water and antifreeze (or buy the fluid that is a 50-50 blende and add it).

 

So I'v driven my car more than 40k and I'v had no problems with the temp, here in Houston it gets pretty hot and the boiling factor is always a concern for me. My only question was how do I now if my fluid is japanesse green or green american? I would not want to change the color or brand it has had for 3 years now. And How many gallons of straight coolant do I need to mix a 50% ratio with distilled water on a Max 06? How much does the hold system hold Gallon wise? so a full flush? and then do your halfs? thanks for your help. if this sounds easy enough which is does I might attempt. but if not, why not buy the nissan green and take it to the shop so they could take care of it there. thanks all help full sight. FACT!!!! HASN'T RAINED IN HOUSTON SINCE MARCH 2011

 

If you bought the Max new, it has the Jap antifreeze. The American antifreeze has a more luminescent color than the Jap.

All of the answers to your other questions are in this thread. You just need to find them.

 

last night i was cleaning my engine i saw that my coolant is kinda low.... i have 100k+ miles and i was thinking to put some coolant... i never changed my coolant so i guess nissan did when i used to go for oil change over there.... ive read that OEM coolant is better... is that true? it matters if i mix it?

 

You are obviously dreaming! The dealer does no work without getting paid for it - ever. You would have know by the size of your bill if the dealer had changed the antifreeze in your Max.

You only should use Jap antifreeze (Nissan, Toyota or Honda brands of OEM).

You should have changed the antifreeze before now - hop to it. The antifreeze mixture over time degrades and needs to be changed. Without looking at the manual, I believe at about 70 K miles or so.

 

is that the right one?

http://www.thenismoshop.com/Nissan-f...lant_p_32.html

 

i wondering how much is to change my coolant so i called Nissan and thay said $200!!!!!!!!!! HOLLY Sh!ttttt. serioysly!!!! then i called valvoline store and they said $99!!!!!!!!!!

so guys what you recomended me... buy new gallon from nissan and mix it with the old one or change? i got around 112k miles

 

Valvoline will not use Jap antifreeze. Read this thread to see why you want to use Jap antifreeze. You can find instructions for doing it yourself on this site. You will need to buy Jap antifreeze and distilled water. I found Toyota antifreeze here was cheaper than Nissan, so bought it.

The Honda dealer here only had the 50/50 blend which does not work with the flush system described on this thread. All three companies (Nissan, Toyota & Honda) sell the appropriate Jap antifreeze - only the color is different for each.

 

im not gonna go to valvoline.. i just called just to ask the cost cuz $200 from stealership sounded crazy!!! does anyone tryed ZEREX green antifreeze?

PS. how many gallons do i need if i put new coolant?

 

water wetter works wonders

 

Coolant change is easy. Go and buy TOYOTA OEM COOLANT, a couple jugs and do this yourself.

All you have to do, is simply drain and refill the system a few times w/ distilled water, and then fill it w/ TOYOTA OEM.

THe whole BORATE< SILICATE stuff is a tad over blown, but I've always used HONDA coolant.