Driving home last Friday I noticed steam coming from under the hood when I parked. I opened it up and the gasket around the throttle body heater plate had sprung a leak. I came on the forums and found great info on how to fix it. This morning I went and picked up the part and did the repair. Everything looks good and no more leak. As I was already doing some work on the vehicle I decided to change the coolant. The consensus on here was that the easiest way to get the old stuff out was to drain it from the main hose coming out of the bottom of the rad. I did this and things were still going good. Then I started to follow the sticky on bleeding the system. I filled the overflow with one full gallon of mix and nothing came out of the bleed hole. I continued to add more but now it wasn't draining through the system. I checked the bleed hole and could see fluid so I sealed it up and turned on the engine. I turned the HVAC to hot and put it through the vents. Eventually the engine got up to temperature and the upper rad hose was hot. The problem was though that I hadn't added anymore fluid and the air was still pumping cold. At this point what fluid was in the tank started to spurt out the overflow near the cap. Did I miss something? Things were going along just as planned until this latest hicup. Can someone help or tell me that I missed a step? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

Very simple fix. Remove the bleed screw from your radiator hose and this time, remove your expansion tank from the bracket and hold it up as high as you can without damaging anything. You will now notice the coolant coming out of the bleed screw. Replace bleed screw and secure expansion tank. Then continue with the bleeding process and you should get hot air.

 

Thanks ChanchoVerde. Great tip. I did this and the fluid came out of the bleed hole. I think the other thing I realised was that this isnt a quick procedure. I had it running with the heat on for about 45 minutes and although the temp was hot it wasn't inferno hot. I then replaced the cap and ran an errand. Unfortunatelly I heard the gurgling behind the dash. The good thing about that was that I tried the heat and now it's inferno hot. Looks like I'm going to have to bleed it again but I learned that next time I'll just let it idle longer.

I wanted to send a big thank you to all the people that post helpful info on this site. I probably saved myself $200 bucks doing the repairs myself today.

 

If you take the battery cover off, you can easily set the expansion tank on the jack area and it'll stay there while you watch the temp feel the air, pour, repeat.

 

Glad to help. I'm just passing on the knowledge that I gained here.