cooling system flush

[Jeff726]

I spent $17.50 today at Wal-Mart to buy a few things for a flush n' fill on my wife's 1997 Ranger XLT and included in what I bought were the Prestone flush n' fill kit and a bottle of Super Radiator Cleaner. After looking at both sets of instructions, I either need one or the other and not both, me thinks. Would the cleaner be better to use instead of a simple kit that uses water to flush? It seems like the cleaner would work better because it does pump throughout the system and you sort of go through a "rinse and repeat" cycle with it, vs. the kit which is more like a rinse that probably will not catch everything and get it out. What do you think?

[andrew54321]

im in an automotive class in college, and we use a pressurized water system where you connect a garden hose and a shop air-line to this adaptor and flush the system in the opposite direction of the coolant flow. the reason for this is to dislodge all the crud that gets stuck going in the direction the coolant travels. By flushing in the opposite direction, you actually clean out all the crud that accumilates in your system. when you refill your system, its reccomended to fill it with a mix of a bit more coolant than water, since you already have a bit of water in your system from flushing it anyway. We use 50/50 mixture down here in san diego, but that may vary in your area depending on your weather. oh, and its a good idea to refill your system with distilled water so you dont have all the crap from city water in your system.

-good lucck- andrew

[TheRangerOfDanger]

yeah, go with the kit, just cause