Coolant flush question

[ATXram1500]

Hey all. 2014 5.7 v8 hemi. I’ve heard flushing coolant system with the hose is fine as long as you rinse with distilled water after. But after the initial flush, im confused on how you flush with distilled water without it being pushed through the engine without a hose. Do I fill with a flush product or distilled water and run the engine? Then drain again and then fill the system with 50/50 OAT?

 

[Burla]

I personally run rmi 25 for 4-5 hundred miles then drain overflow and just do drain and fills of radiator every year. Only refreshes about 1/2 the coolant, but rmi 25 gently cleans system and traps contamination in over flow. Too many obstacles to do full flush, it is said in every flush thread do a search. I would never use hose water. If you use a shop, ask them tough questions on how they flush all the fluid, chances are they dont/.

How to SUPER FLUSH your Cars Cooling System

Learn how to flush your cooling system including the radiator, heater core, and engine block. I go though every step to SUPER FLUSH your cooling system compl...

youtu.be

 

[ATXram1500]

Well I’ve already done a full flush with water. I’m replacing my water pump, but I didn’t know if I needed to run the system with distilled water or if I could use a flushing product. Thanks for the reply

 

[Burla]

Coolants do not contain cleaners because it is counterproductive to their purpose of putting a film on metal. rmi 25 is one of those few miracle in a bottle products, read up on it, it will help with any hose water issue you did, rmi 25 encapsulates anything hose water did and removes it. Anything that rusts or causes issues such as deposits. Read up on it, I've been using almost 2 decades, a few guys on the board recently been using it. It makes the question how to flush coolant a real easy answer. First a rmi 25 treatment, then drain and fills. Things such as your thermnostat, heater core valve, hard to remove engine bolts make it next to impossible for full flushes. For instance, if the fluid you are putting in is not 205f, then how can it circulate? The thermostat is closed. Just one of a bunch of things preventing full flushes.

 

[ATXram1500]

Well by removing heater core hoses, and thermostat, you can flush the block and heater core. You’re supposed to run your heater so the thermostat can open and suck the water/coolant into your system allowing for a full flush. Rmi 25 looks like a cleaner or additive, not necessarily a full system flush product.

 

[mrack]

Yes fill with distilled water, make sure you bleed it at the bleeder screw, then run it for a while with heater on, let it get up to temp so the thermostat opens. Make sure the coolant temp is normal the entire time, if an air bubble is still in the system somewhere the temp will spike when the bubble reaches the sensor.

After that, drain everything you can at the radiator petcock and passenger side block drain, refill with mopar concentrate coolant which should get you in the ballpark of a 50/50 mix. Make sure to fill from the radiator cap not the overflow reservoir. You can use a refractometer to check the concentration, aim for 50/50 or a little higher. If you live in a cold climate make sure you do this while the weather is above freezing.

 

[ATXram1500]

so I guess my confusion is, after I drain the system.. I can add 50/50 after that? How do I know all the water is completely drained out? Will it be okay if there’s still a tiny amount of water in there when I fill with 50/50?

 

[El Guapo Phil]

Who sells RMI 25? Amazon sell it in a 4 quart package for $75. O'Reily's website does not have it. Autozone, also does not have it.

All I need is a quart.

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

so I guess my confusion is, after I drain the system.. I can add 50/50 after that? How do I know all the water is completely drained out? Will it be okay if there’s still a tiny amount of water in there when I fill with 50/50?

@ATXram1500 , you won't know how much water is still in your system, at least not precisely. You might take an educated guess and then add a little extra antifreeze above the standard 50/50 mix to compensate, but it will still just be an educated guess. If I were in your position, I'd purchase a measuring device (hydrometer or refractometer) to measure the coolant concentration after you've taken your best guess and let it cycle/mix thoroughly. Then add antifreeze or water to get the concentration just right. But If you've already had multiple drain & fills using only 50/50 mix, then your ratio should already be pretty close to 50/50 anyway.

If you buy a hydrometer, get a decent one. I bought a super cheap Prestone hydrometer and it was leaky and useless.

 

[ATXram1500]

@ATXram1500 , you won't know how much water is still in your system, at least not precisely. You might take an educated guess and then add a little extra antifreeze above the standard 50/50 mix to compensate, but it will still just be an educated guess. If I were in your position, I'd purchase a measuring device (hydrometer or refractometer) to measure the coolant concentration after you've taken your best guess and let it cycle/mix thoroughly. Then add antifreeze or water to get the concentration just right. But If you've already had multiple drain & fills using only 50/50 mix, then your ratio should already be pretty close to 50/50 anyway.

If you buy a hydrometer, get a decent one. I bought a super cheap Prestone hydrometer and it was leaky and useless.

So if the truck takes 12 quarts (3 gallons of coolant). After the flush can’t I just add 1.5 gallons of pure OAT then fill the rest with distilled water to get the 50/50 mix?

 

[NETim]

Who sells RMI 25? Amazon sell it in a 4 quart package for $75. O'Reily's website does not have it. Autozone, also does not have it.

All I need is a quart.

I got an 8 ounce container from these guys:

https://www.dieselsite.com/rmi-25colanttreatment.aspx

 

[mrack]

so I guess my confusion is, after I drain the system.. I can add 50/50 after that? How do I know all the water is completely drained out? Will it be okay if there’s still a tiny amount of water in there when I fill with 50/50?

By draining everything you can at the radiator petcock and passenger side block drain, you will drain approximately 50% of the water. It’s not possible to drain all of it. That’s why you need to use concentrate coolant, mixed with the water that’s in there it will end up being reasonably close to a 50/50 mix. If you were to add premixed at that point you would be closer to a 25/75 mix consisting of mostly water. A cheap coolant tester/refractometer is very useful to verify you’re at or above 50/50. Also make sure you use the correct mopar coolant for your truck, a 2014 should use 10 year OAT. Amazon has it for a little cheaper then the dealer usually but it does take a while to ship.

One more thing, you did take the thermostat out when flushing right?

 

[ATXram1500]

By draining everything you can at the radiator petcock and passenger side block drain, you will drain approximately 50% of the water. It’s not possible to drain all of it. That’s why you need to use concentrate coolant, mixed with the water that’s in there it will end up being reasonably close to a 50/50 mix. If you were to add premixed at that point you would be closer to a 25/75 mix consisting of mostly water. A cheap coolant tester/refractometer is very useful to verify you’re at or above 50/50. Also make sure you use the correct mopar coolant for your truck, a 2014 should use 10 year OAT. Amazon has it for a little cheaper then the dealer usually but it does take a while to ship.

One more thing, you did take the thermostat out when flushing right?

So bought some concentrate from the dealer today. The purple stuff. Knowing that 1.5 gallons is exactly half of the system, I was only able to put a little over a gallon of coolant in. Seems there was more water in there than I thought. Sitting about 40/60 coolant water mixture probably. I live in Texas so I don’t have to worry about freezing, I bought a meter to test the mixture. I will test tomorrow. In the meantime, I noticed the coolant temp gets to about 210 when I’m sitting at idle, no ac no heater. When I’m driving it is comfortably around 195-200. Is that an issue? When I turn the heater on (in idle) the coolant temp drops back down to about 195-200. Any signs of a blockage or is that normal? I’m assuming once I turned the heater on, coolant was able to run through the heater core so I don’t think there’s a blockage.

Thoughts?

 

[ATXram1500]

Also yes, thermostat was out when I flushed. It needed a good cleaning anyways. Thinking about replacing it soon just because.

 

[ATXram1500]

Removed thermostat, flushed entire system. Then installed thermostat, ran distilled water through the whole system while truck was running, cap off. Drained. Filled with coolant until I was close to 50/50 mix. Ran truck with cap off, heater on so thermostat would open and allow coolant in the system. Kept adding coolant until no more was being sucked down.

 

[mrack]

210* sounds normal to me. If you buy a new thermostat test it in a pot of water on the stove with a thermometer before installing to verify it opens at the correct temperature, a LOT of new thermostats are faulty.

 

[GTyankee]

There are a few things that you should run OEM equipment on, the Fuel Cap & the Thermostat & 02 sensors
If you have already installed after market equipment, just to consider Mopar on those products next time

 

[Burla]

There is no air on the radiator at idle, this is very normal.

 

[ATXram1500]

There is no air on the radiator at idle, this is very normal.

I'm just worried because my thermostat is 203* , Just wasn't sure if it was normal to see slight temps above while at idle. Thanks!

 

[Burla]

It is a two part cooling system, the most overlooked part being wind. It would be a little interesting the temperature of characteristics idle in park versus neutral, my guess the longer you would idle they would be similar, but that is just a guess. The earlier rams you needed to be in anything but park to rotate fluid, I'm not 100% on 4 gen.