I am a dumbass,,,,

[Smkn_TA]

Aight, so I changed the thermostat on my car, it is fairly old, I figured it should be done. I drained the antifreeze out, since you can only get the thermostat with a housing(according to autozone). I drained a shitload out, and wow, amazing design by pontiac easiest anti freeze access ever, and it does not run down all the other shit. Perfect! Cought it all, then put it back in later...here is what I did wrong. I put the antifreeze in the antifreeze dip stick thing, not the radiator. DOH! It will not drain down now! It is full to the top in thetre and causing me to get the low coolant light. I took it for a drive and it went to red line on heat and I had to crank heater up and dog it home. So how do I get it to drain out of there??

[Ed Blown Vert]

Siphon it out. But did you add anti-freeze to the radiator?

[Sleeper101]

Did you actually fill the radiator up after you figured this out? Also sometimes a new thermo won't open on the first attempt.

You could use a hose and the old fashion syfering- (Spelling) method to drain the coolant down.

[2001NBMZ28]

Turkey baster will work if you don't like the taste of dexcool, but take a few minutes. Make sure you get all the air out of the system, start the car cold keep adding to the radiator until thermostat opens, it stops bubbling and won't take any more.

[Smkn_TA]

No, I did not add any to the radiator, but everything I took out went back in, just in the wrong hole. I used a turkey bastor and got it back in the radiator. I am letting it sit overnight now letting it all run down and settle like it wants to.

[2001NBMZ28]

Label the bastor "for garage use only" and buy a new one to replace it. Used one for brake/clutch fluid once...

[TransAm11973]

i would try to suck out the fluid, go to auto zone or somewhere cheap and get a large syringe suck it out.......if you dont want to do that, do this

1. take out the battery.
2. there is one bolt that will be holding the dip stick container in its hole. Remove that bolt.
3. carefully pull up on the whole container unit,(careful of your hoses)
4. either pour it into a container to transfer, or just use gravity to let it go down the rubber hose back into the radiator. ( you will have to manually hold the dip stick container up to let the fluid drain out.
5. once its out,...put the container back into its "hole" ,make sure hoses arent kinked.
put its bolt back in and tighten that bad boy down
6. put your battery back in, and re connect it.
7. recheck your fluid level now, if not full fill the RADIATOR up. and like the boys said with the cap off let it run ,in idle,... to get the air out
8. recheck level and do what you gotta do

[sunsetorangess]

Now that you got the coolant back where it is suppose to be, i would start it up and let it run a bit with the cap off and add as needed. Just curious but if you say your thermostat was fairly old, as would be your coolant right? Why not just replace them both.
J

[0rion]

not good on aluminum blocks/heads running 'em hot like that. Personally, I would take the battery out and then take the 2 screws out that hold the resevoir down and pull the resevoir. Dump that old stuff in the trash and go fill it up with new. Why do the swap and put your old antifreeze back in? That's like flipping your underwear inside out when you have a whole drawer full of clean ones.....it works but isn't necessary.

[TransAm11973]

yea def put in new fluids

[Smkn_TA]

I just wanted to say thanks for the tip on leaving car idling with the radiator cap off to get air off. All the cars I have ever delt with were fords with sealed radiators and an overflow tank. Never delt with a cap before. Gotta say that was a lot easier than running it, letting it sit, filling a little more, running, and doing that cycle. Every car should have radiator caps!

[1st TA]

Take the rad. cap off, hold hand over the hole, use a tube or something over the res. tank and blow into tube. It won't take much pressure to blow coolant from the res. tank to the rad.