call me stupid, but i never knew you had to bleed the rad when filling. how do i know if i have air in my system? and does this have to be done everytime you remove the cap? I just want to know what i should do now to get any air out, just unscrew my bleeder or what?

 

to bleed the air out start the car up leving the rad. cap off let it warm up to engine temp so that the thermostat will open keep adding water to top it up. most cooling systems are self bleeding. you realy dont need to this if u just take the cap off. only do it if you remove the radiator, water pump or the thermostat housing.

 

Also helps if you push down on your strut tower under the hood and make the car bounce. Makes those bubbles come to the top a lil quicker.

 

If you have the stock radiator, there should be a bleeder screw on the passenger side of the tank facing the engine bay.

I never needed to use it, I just followed the same procedure listed above with the motor running and the cap off the rad. One extra step I added was revving the motor slightly will drop the level of coolant in the radiator. I'd rev the motor till the coolant level dropped, then while holding the rev, fill the radiator to the top with coolant and put the cap on. I'd let the revs drop and allow the motor to idle for a few moments. After that, I'd repeat the rev/add/cap until the coolant level no longer dropped. Finally, I'd add coolant to the overflow resevoir so that when the system pushed any remaining air out, it would have a fresh supply of coolant to suck back in.

 

Remove the bleeder screw and fill it up. You will be amazed at how much extra you can put in. The bleeder screw is on hte top of the radiator. Be glad you have one, 89-91 cars dont have one. It is usually a week's job to get hte radiator to fill up completely

 

Aren't you supposed to turn the heat on as well?

 

I picked up a bottle from the Snap-on man for about 25 bucks. It is about 1/2 gallon capacity and has an adaptor that goes in place of the radiator cap. You put the adpator on, then place the bottle on the adaptor and fill the bottle up, let the car idle and as it is idleing it bleeds the system. When you are done, you shut the car off, sqeeze the upper radiator hose a tad, then plug the hole in the bottle with the included plug, remove the bottle, remove the adaptor, then put the radiator cap back on.

You can basically do this and then go work on something else. It is a really neat device. well worth the 25 bucks.

Carl

 

See Chapter 3 (Cooling System):
http://www.iluvmyrx7.com/Technical_I...ice_manual.htm