Ram 5.7Hemi Coolant Flush DIY

[U&A]

The 6.4 is way harder to bleed the air out of simply because there is no rad cap, you have to bleed it from the reservoir.

Sorry you had such a hard time with this, @U&A went thru bleeding his 6.4 and it wasn't easy. I think he said he was going to invest in a vacuum fill tool for next time...

Yes

100% im getting a vacuum fill setup. Not very expensive and they make it easy.

I wont ever again try a basic drain and fill with the 6.4. You have to get creative as others have mentioned. And then pray the air finds its way out fast enough. Not a good plan.

for under $100 you can get the vacuum kit. I will pay for “easy”.







Thats why I have a motive power fill and their break bleeder. Makes life easy. The break bleeder is THE $H!T. Once you use it you wont go back.

 

[HEMIMANN]

My son got a brake bleeder and brought it over. I saw it and said what's that? lol

To prove I'm not a total fossil, I got a pressure bottle filler for hard to reach gear boxes on the little Asian cars, and he said what's that?

 

[Hemi395]

My son got a brake bleeder and brought it over. I saw it and said what's that? lol

To prove I'm not a total fossil, I got a pressure bottle filler for hard to reach gear boxes on the little Asian cars, and he said what's that?

I bought a pressure filler/extractor to fill the 8hp transmissions in the Wrangler and GC. I refuse to hand pump quart bottles into the transmission under the vehicle with it running and rushing to get the required amount in before it reaches 120 degrees.

Some tools are just worth the expense

 

[larrymax]

Well, I have to say things "seem" to be fine. Drove it a lot this week. Ran about 195-200 on the highway and 215-218 in town and heavy traffic. Heat in the cab is great so I think it's fine. Before all of this, the heat seemed to take a bit longer than normal in the cab but now I have no complaints. The engine check light remains with the same code. Coolant level is stable. Engine oil and transmission heat levels are where they are supposed to be. Not sure if any of that has anything to do with this but, I'll try and clear the code again tomorrow.

 

[JCHunter62]

The only thing I would ad to this is not all Gen 4s have a bleeder. Mine has some weird hose on it and I spent half an hour trying to find the bleed point. If you dont mess with the block Plugs, youre gonna need about 14 gals of DI Water to get it clean. After 13.5 gals mine was mostly opaque and I ran out. If this is your first time doing your coolant around 100K miles you should change the radiator hoses too since you have the work 50% done.

 

[BlingRam]

So in case anyone wondered what 10 yrs would do to the factory coolant - I have an answer. Finally got around to flushing the system, what came out is in the rightmost bottles:
View attachment 548065

Funny thing - this, erm, liquid still worked, my temperatures never got out of control.

I used a chemical cooling system cleaner twice - with the first and third water fills and then kept on flushing everything out. Eventually I got tired of the drain fill routine and disconnected the supply hose that feeds the cabin heater and the transmission heat exchanger.

.......

HOLY MOLY!!

I'm somewhat relieved to see somebody else had the same color coolant as this 2021 Classic (w/ ~141 k miles) that I *just* purchased yesterday. The coolant is definitely a watery brown color, which was the ONLY thing I could identify as being wrong with the vehicle before purchasing it. I figured as long as both it and the engine oil were not a "milky" brown, then it's probably OK? (Was somewhat concerned that the cast iron block was seriously rusted... but based on this thread, it appears that the coolant line is primarily aluminum??)

After actually driving it a couple hundred miles home, I'm SUPER happy with the way it handled the trip. Besides the coolant, the only other thing I've been able to identify as "bad" (needing a "fixin'") is the Cruise Control "On/Off" button doesn't appear to actually work.

I'm probably going to get tired of it, but I'm planning to NOT replace the thermostat right away, and just try replacing 1.5 gallons every 2 or 3 hours after warming up and cooling down. Kinda long, slow process... but somewhat easy at the same time...?? Potentially a week long process, but only 4 or 5 min of actual work each day??

Something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread was replacing the radiator cap?!? I've NEVER done that before or even heard of needing to replace a radiator cap, but my artificially intelligent companion in my pocket suggested replacing it at the same time that I replace the thermostat, because of it being a spring-loaded / pressurized component (perhaps had to do with me suggesting that my coolant was potentially full of rust??). Anyone think it's worth it to replace the radiator cap, or would that likely be a complete waste?

-- Bling Bling, the Ram Bling Man

 

[Hemi395]

HOLY MOLY!!

I'm somewhat relieved to see somebody else had the same color coolant as this 2021 Classic (w/ ~141 k miles) that I *just* purchased yesterday. The coolant is definitely a watery brown color, which was the ONLY thing I could identify as being wrong with the vehicle before purchasing it. I figured as long as both it and the engine oil were not a "milky" brown, then it's probably OK? (Was somewhat concerned that the cast iron block was seriously rusted... but based on this thread, it appears that the coolant line is primarily aluminum??)

After actually driving it a couple hundred miles home, I'm SUPER happy with the way it handled the trip. Besides the coolant, the only other thing I've been able to identify as "bad" (needing a "fixin'") is the Cruise Control "On/Off" button doesn't appear to actually work.

I'm probably going to get tired of it, but I'm planning to NOT replace the thermostat right away, and just try replacing 1.5 gallons every 2 or 3 hours after warming up and cooling down. Kinda long, slow process... but somewhat easy at the same time...?? Potentially a week long process, but only 4 or 5 min of actual work each day??

Something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread was replacing the radiator cap?!? I've NEVER done that before or even heard of needing to replace a radiator cap, but my artificially intelligent companion in my pocket suggested replacing it at the same time that I replace the thermostat, because of it being a spring-loaded / pressurized component (perhaps had to do with me suggesting that my coolant was potentially full of rust??). Anyone think it's worth it to replace the radiator cap, or would that likely be a complete waste?

-- Bling Bling, the Ram Bling Man

This is an excellent point, the radiator cap should be replaced every so often. Proper pressure in the cooling system is critical to it functioning properly and having the correct boil protection.

 

[Xsen]

I'm probably going to get tired of it, but I'm planning to NOT replace the thermostat right away, and just try replacing 1.5 gallons every 2 or 3 hours after warming up and cooling down. Kinda long, slow process... but somewhat easy at the same time...?? Potentially a week long process, but only 4 or 5 min of actual work each day??

While replacing the thermostat I've found that a huge syringe with a silicon tube extension makes life so much easier - open the cap, stick the tube in all the way to the bottom of the radiator, suck out the fluid and wait to repeat, while the coolant level levels with what is left in the block. You can take out about 6-7 liters of coolant this way.

I went flushing because no matter how much water I ran through in the drain-fill-run sequence, it kept coming out in all sorts of brown (thoough it did get lighter after some time), and I wanted none of that yuck left in the system.