First a big thank you
@Hemi395 for the write up! I was able to follow it quite closely for my 3rd Gen 2009 Ram 2500. Thought it could still be worth sharing my experiences, so here goes.
First, I just bought this Ram with about 105k miles on it. Wasn't sure when the coolant had been done last, but since it's 5 years or 100k miles I figured it's due. When draining the fluid out of the radiator petcock it looked brand new; that's a good sign right?! No rust or funky colors, just nice bright coolant. Based on that I decided to skip the distilled water flush and just do a drain and refill.
After draining the radiator I removed the heater core hoses, then the lower radiator hose (at the water pump), and then went for the block drains. I did not remove the t-stat since I wasn't doing the flush and it didn’t seem removing it would get any more coolant out. Taking a bit of a gamble that the t-stat is in good shape…
Passenger side block drain was easy to get to, but not easy to get off. At first I thought the 14mm socket was a hair too small. But with a good cleaning and some tapping on the socket I got a good fit. Also took a lot of umph to break the plug loose.
On to the driver's side plug. It looked to me like I might be able to get to it with a wobble extension. Not sure how different my 3rd Gen 5.7 (or the layout of a 2500 for that matter) is but I was JUST able to get everything on. Here’s a photo:
View attachment 195953
Again, quite difficult getting the socket seated on the block plug. With patience and persistence I got the socket fully seated and the wobble extension on. Took a lot (more than the passenger side) to break that one free, probably due to the loss of toque through the extension?
That was it for draining, here are a couple of notes. First, my coolant fill/overflow tank did not drain during the process. This must be a difference with the 3rd Gen or 2500? Looks like the only connection between the tank and the radiator is right at the radiator cap. I believe when fluid level drops in the radiator it "pulls" fluid up out of the expansion tank, so no surprise it didn’t drain. At first I thought I’d just leave it be since there isn't an easy way to get it out of there, but eventually I changed my mind and decided to siphon it out. Second note, with all the draining I only got to 12 quarts (not including the expansion tank), quite a bit shy of the 18 listed in the manual. I’m not too worried, draining good looking HOAT and replacing with new HOAT, hopefully all good.
Speaking of HOAT, where I live it’s pretty damn hard to find!! Guess I should have looked into that BEFORE draining the coolant out. Finally found some Valvoline Zerex G05 that was not pre-mixed, bought 2 gallons of that and 2 gallons of distilled water. Put the no-spill funnel on the radiator and started filling. Got a bit over 2 gallons of 50/50 in the radiator before any came out of the bleeder next to the thermostat on the water pump. Once I had topped off the radiator l I started up the truck. Took a bit of burping and interestingly the fluid in the funnel went up a lot before the t-stat opened and everything drained down. As the funnel level went up I saw that there was definitely still old coolant in the system; my mellow yellow Zerex mixed with the old fluorescent orange coolant made a nice pinkish color.
After all the burping I made sure the radiator was topped off completely. The coolant in the overflow had never moved. Capped the radiator and called it a day with the intention of driving around before a more thorough leak check and also checking the final mix. When I came back (about 36 hours later) I saw that roughly a 1/2 qt had been pulled from the expansion tank into the system while it sat. At this point decided to drain the expansion tank, should have done it the first day. Got almost 2 qt out brining my total drained to 14 qt. Perfectly matched to the 3 1/2 gal I put back in, but still a whole gallon away from 18 qt.
Take aways:
- Even with all the block draining I still did not get 18 qt out. (Would love to hear thoughts or ideas on why!)
- Doing a “flush” and fill strictly from the radiator petcock (as mentioned by other posters in this thread) may be a much easier way to go.
- Make sure you have the coolant you want before you drain!!