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After 5 years, I finally successfully bled my coolant system
I've tried everything from the RAVE method to other alternative techniques. Some worked better than others, but for the first time I'm waterfall free.
What I did differently is I hung up the reservoir as per the rave, but then used a hand pump to force about 1/3 gallon of distilled water in thru the bleed valve (you could use antifreeze, I just didn't have any and it doesn't freeze here). One thing different about my truck is I did the inline thermostat conversion, so I have a brass petcock as my bleed valve, which makes it easy to connect the hose. With a stock bleed valve, you'll have to rig something, but I think it's still doable.
That was it. Pumped the water in, closed the valve, and fired it up. Waterfall gone. I didn't think it had worked, because I didn't see any bubbles or anything in the reservoir, but I must have missed them.
I have successfully done it a few times, once I followed the RAVE and lifted the coolant reservoir up with no problems. The other times I have used an Airlift bleeder that I got off Amazon. It is very similar to what my professional wrench friend uses (his is Snap-On) but was much less expensive. You simply hook it up to a compressor and draw a vacuum and then flip the valve to add coolant and you are done. It simply just works with no drama or fuss.
The only downside is you need an larger air compressor to draw the vacuum but we all know air tools make car repair more fun. My 30 gal compressor works fine for the Airlift.
The cap was off. My tank was a little low on coolant; if yours is full and you just want to kill the waterfall, you might want to siphon it dry and then pump that fluid in thru the bleed valve.
If I was refilling the system, I'd add coolant normally until the reservoir just barely starts to fill up, then add the rest thru the bleed valve.
I've considered getting a larger compressor and an air bleeder, but I really wanted to find a simpler solution.
08-03-2017, 10:54 AM
After 5 years, I finally successfully bled my coolant system
