I've read several places that the dry to full coolant amount is somewhere around 13 quarts, but it's around 8 after a coolant flush. I've flushed my system with tap water, then filled it with distilled water and flushed it several times.

When I drain all the distilled water from the system—and I'm not unscrewing the engine block drain plugs—and fill with new coolant, if what I've read is right, I'll only be able to fill up about 8 quarts of coolant. So doesn't that mean the 50/50 mixture water to coolant ratio will get screwed up by the other 5 or so quarts or water hiding in the system?

 

It will lower the percentage, you could add 5 qts concentrate and then fill with 50/50.

 

^ exactly..
Or just fill 6.5qt concentrate. Then fill rest with
Distiller water,

 

First, never flush or use tap water in your Disco, this cause a lot of calcium build up which will tracy your radiator.
If you are planning on doing a flush, use only distilled water ,ake sure to replace your coolant cap and install a 180 degree t/stat.
I always suggest buying 2 2.5 gallon bottles of distilled water from the store, remove the lower hose, drain, reattach fill with distilled, run the engine for 2 minutes or less, drain again then install a 1 gallon bottle of concentrate coolant topping off with distilled water. When done, check the mix ratio and adjust accordingly.
By the way you must have a 50/50 mix, if you install a gallon of concentrate you can't them top off with 50/50 or you will have way too much coolant to water ratio.

 

Forum keeps not letting me post and then deleting what I wrote, so I'm going to keep this brief:

Thanks for the directions Disco Mike! But I'm a little confused, because I haven't yet seen any mention of compensating for the extra 5 liters of water supposedly hanging out in the system, everyone just says put 50/50 mix in to about 8 quarts, after draining.

I flushed and dumped twice with distilled water, driving a little after each fill up and then letting cool, and after the second flush, I shop vac'ed the system and got about a quart out that way. It seemed bone dry after that.

When I filled up with coolant, I was able to put in about 7 quarts.

How could there still be 4 or 5 liters in there? I don't know if I trust this supposed "13 liters when dry" number. Everyone else just says to drain and then fill with 50/50, about 8 quarts. Am I missing something here?

I just drove around town with heat blasting, and everything's looking great.

 

There's nothing wrong with flushing with tap water then a flush after with distilled, before doing your final fill.
There's probably some water trapped in the heater core and also in the bottom of the radiator.

You're not going to be that far off. If you're worried you can check the specific gravity of the coolant when you're done. You should be able to find a specific gravity chart online for the type of coolant you're using.

 

za105 my post was saying add 5 quarts concentrate to bring to 50/50, assuming you have 5 quarts of distilled water in the system, then top off with 50/50 mix. This should keep your system at 50/50.

 

Antichrist, thanks for the reassurance. Been driving it a lot and it's running great.

Joemamma1954, I see what you mean. Is that how you've done your coolant flushes and refills?

 

Just use distilled water. There's no minerals in it to cause corrosion. If your flushing out Dex Cool, Drain system at radiator and refill 4-5 times running the engine through it's hot and cool cycle, go ahead and take half of a day to do this correctly, mow the yard in between drains and cool downs? Then if people have issues getting there 50/50 mix correct, just buy pre-mixed green coolant and refill the system with it after your last drain? Its really easy

 

I bought an electric fan recently (complete junk... raised temps) and the faq on the site said to run 25/75 (water/green) for best cooling in the summer. I've read that other places, too.

I do 50/50.