I'm doing a coolant replacement on my CS
987.1
3.4L following the instructions on the Pelican site. Unfortunately, this motor does not have a drain plug as denoted. The coolant removed was not a 50/50 mix and I know residual coolant is still in there.
Is there anyway to easily check the concentration now after refilling? Can the min/max plastic tabs/tube inside the coolant filler neck be removed to get a good sample? I doubt if I can fish a plastic line around both of them successfully without damage. If not, I'll have to loosen one of the rad hoses underneath and do it the messy way. Possibly, another round (or 2) of draining to get it right.
Any advice?
Take your hydrometer sample directly from the expansion tank under the engine cover. Obviously wait for the engine to cool before opening the cap.
@slicked1
- A few points and WAG.
Given that hose lines go all the way back to/from the back in our wonderful mid-body engines, there is an incredible reservoir of coolant -- and I agree that there's likely some residual coolant in there. However, I wouldn't stress about the exact concentration, IMHO. A little left in the lines will be incredibly diluted by the fresh, and I seriously doubt it'll make much of a difference. TBH, I'll bet that whatever you pull and test (post mixing) will be pretty close to exact.
Just be sure to run the car pretty well to ensure whatever is left in the lines is mixed throughly with the fresh coolant, and then take your reading. You might also be able to pull enough sample from the coolant cap -- I'd try that first.
Any time a large amount of coolant is replaced, it would be a very good idea to "burp" any trapped air at the coolant tank. It sometimes takes a long time for the trapped air to work its way through the system.
You may need to do this several times as trapped air accumulates.
BTW - One thing I wanted to check,
@slicked1
-- Please tell us that you did the coolant swap using a vacuum fill, right? If not, you're likely going to want to redo the fill -- sorry for the not so great news.
With such long stretches off hose -- with all the twists and bends -- there's plenty of spots for air pockets to form. Unlike a front-engine car, where you can get away with just massaging the hoses and burping the air out of the lines (which I did on my E30 last year), you'll still want to do that for a while after the fill in our cars -- but that's not going to be enough to properly evacuate all the air -- lest you risk overheating your car.
Let us know how you get on with this.
I ended up doing the drain process twice following the PelicanParts procedure. Kept a keen eye on the temp gage that never when above 175 during the entire process. Plan to monitor to fluid level in the
next
few starts to see if anything changes. Good thing now is the concentration level is now a 50/50 mix. You can definitely tell the bleeder port did its job ridding the system of air. For grins, I might go toss the vacuum pump on it if a level change is seen.
I’ve never done a complete flush and refill yet, but where is the ’bleeder port’ you mention in case I decide to do a flush and fill one day in the future?
On the gen 1 cars at least there's a bleed valve on top the expansion tank. Has a metal D-ring that you flip up or down to open and close. I don't recall the bleed procedure.
Here is the procedure from Pelican.
Porsche Boxster Coolant Replacement / Coolant Flush - 986 / 987 (1997-08) - Pelican Parts Technical Article
Check it out - Wayne explains more than you ever wanted to know about your cooling system, why you need to maintain it regularly, and how to change that pesky coolant.
www.pelicanparts.com
As Graywolf denotes, on the passenger side of the motor sits the expansion tank. Forward of the light blue filler cap the bleed port resides. Flip it up to release the pressure. The procedure tells you when to do it......
