Hello all,

Gave some thought to draining my coolant without making a mess. In the past, I've removed the lower hose carefully and used several drain pans, pots etc and caught most of the coolant, but it still managed to get all over. Looking at the difficult location of the block drain, I've never messed with it.

However, one poster a few weeks ago commented about using a plastic bag, so I gave it a try. It sort of works, and relatively speaking doesn't make a mess. Here goes:

Remove the splash pan and drain solely from the lower hose. Using a (say 30 gal) plastic bag, do your best to encircle the area around the lower hose and nipple. I used a bit of duct tape, here and there to help hold the bag in place. Obviously the bag won't fit too well but do your best to ensure the opening is under the lower hose.

Run the bag into a clean drain pan. I used my oil pan that I carefully cleaned of oil and detritus. Cut the bottom of the bag in a few places to ensure flow is directed into the pan. Loosen the lower hose slightly and let some coolant flow into the bag. Reinstall the lower hose and take a look to see how things are going as you may have to make additional slits in the bottom of the bag.
If things go well and you don't go too fast, you can get all the coolant to drain into the bag then through to the drain pan. It worked for me and made far less mess than previously experienced. Plus when you're done, you can throw the bag away.

My next try is using a dog scratch hood with a funnel attached to the bottom!

Marty Wolfson

--
93 244 175K, 93 244 109K, 93 245 115K, 99 V-70 84K