Idiots guide to draining coolant please

[The Bishop]

I've been looking through the wiki and searches by "coolant" and Drain" and "plug" and I just can't see exactly where the drain plug is.

I don't want to go undoing random bolts.

I've a 1.9 DG Petrol engine.

Could someone post a photo of the drain plug so that I can be sure to undo the right one.

Thanks,

Will this also drain the radiator?

Thanks,

[Rich Tea]

Suggest you drop the spare wheel and take the btm pipe off the rad.
The engine water jacket drain holes can been found between the push rod tubes (they're a bit hard to see), but think hard about undoing these, Do you really want to risk a water jacket leak?

Rich

[PetenAli]

Also you can just remove the lowest coolant hose in the engine bay. Personally on an old engine I wouldn't fancy trying to undo the drain plugs.

Don't forget to move the heater controls to "hot" as well otherwise you'll leave old coolant in the heater matrix.

[CovKid]

Agree with above, undo lowest coolant pipe in engine bay - one of those that comes from the rad will be fine. I shoved a hosepipe into all the places I could actually get at to remove any crud. Then I topped up and bled system with ordinary water and radflush type stuff (used a couple of bottles I think), bled it, and took it for a good 20 mile thrash to get it up to temperature and the radflush circulated (would be ok left in overnight if you wanted to). Once back and things had cooled down a little, I drained it once more and again ran hosepipe through. Then added antifreeze mix. I found that Euro Car Parts had the right stuff and at reasonable cost but got the cooling system flush from GSF.

Bleeding the system is all in the WIKI.

[The Bishop]

Perfect, makes clear sense now,

Thanks guys, will pop to GSF tomorrow on my way home and ask for my 80-90 discount!

Thanks,

[CovKid]

Do your homework though. I found even with the discount, Euro Car Parts longlife antifreeze (G12+ spec) was still a better deal as it came in bigger containers. Gave me enough spare for top-ups and I find they'll haggle a bit on price if you're chirpy.