Swivel socket makes easy work of it, or ratcheting wrench... but I forget not everyone has tens of thousands of dollars in tools. And the thermostat is controlled by the DME as to how far it opens to an extent. I wonder if you could stimulate the plug and make it open? (wonder if there's a chance of faulting the thermostat that way though)

I actually put a swivel socket on it, I could have eventually gotten it, but the length of my extension was meh........ sun is going down.

At first I was doing it with the cap off, but now I have been warming it up with the cap on and the bleeder screw open and all I am getting is hot as hell steam on the bleeder screw and still a cold lower hose. If it is like it should be (just the bleeder screw open when will the dme open the thermostat? The temp gauge is dead center and the heat will burn you out of the truck.

The DME opens the thermostat only when it deems necessary, if it can hold the engine temp where it wants with it closed it will do so. Maybe put the heater blower fan on the lowest setting so the heater core isn't acting like a radiator as much itself. I don't think the aluminum sediment is going to be carried in the flow enough to matter much, just the normal coolant flush will likely give as good of results as you can expect to get with the rest of the system intact.

flush and fill #5............ still tons of copper/brass looking metal coming out.

I've been using my oil pan to catch and inspect and it looks like I am panning for gold. I can't stress the word "lot's" when speaking of the volume of this in the coolant.

Enjoy a movie:

After flush #7

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I have to say I haven't seen coppr shavings from a water pump failure in the coolant like that. Maybe some aluminum or steel. I'm not sure what is made of copper in a mdern cooling system. I hate to say it, but that looks like that Barr's Stop Leak stuff you find at autozone. I've seen many used car dealers put this stuff in to plug a quick leak and ruin the entire cooling system. I could definitely be wrong, but if you look at a bottle of it on the shelf it has copper flakes that look just like that. How long have you had your X?

-Ben

In that case you may need to do the flush with the hose with the block drains out... Thinking about it, if you just pop the upper radiator hose off of the water pump and use that as the hose point it will push the water through the coolant pipes and the rear accumulator/crosspipe into the back of the engine around the cylinder jugs, helping flow the sediment out of the block drains.

Ha! Just had a flashback of the old computer game where you connected pipes together!

Plumber Game - connect the tap with the overflow pipe.

If it is indeed stop leak, I'd fill it with straight water with some radiator flush in there, run it to temp then drain it again, then do the flush as described in my last post. Flushing the radiator is easier then the engine of course.

(I miss the days when I could just pull the thermostat from the housing and run a garden hose into the radiator with the engine running and the upper hose pulled off, flushing the living hell out of a system...)

I just did that 7 times. (no radiator flush) going in the coolant tank and out the bottom of the radiator. Cycling the engine up to temp, with the thermostat open and washing.

Now I've done it all day and refilled with fresh coolant. I'm done for at least right this second. I was trying to improve a situation and I'm tired now. LOL. There is a leak I noticed on the hose just above the lower radiator hose which is a smaller hose at the junction. The junction seems to be leaking where it connects to the small hose. Nothing major, but it is. I don't know what the inside of those black plastic junctions look like. Do I have to buy an O-ring to fix the leak there?

I hope that bleeder screw also purges when overfilled because I kept getting coolant on top there after each drive. (knowing it was overfilled)

and more fun with copper/brass flakes..........



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