Flushing engine block

[Craydiver]

Ive just had my Radiator cleaned (50%) blocked, the rad guy said quite common on the cross flow radiators. ive got a TD42.
With so much stuff in the rad, its clear that the block is likely to be full of crud. Yes I can simply run a hose in there without rad fitted, but ideally I would like to use an engine flush solution to really get rid of the crud

Has anyone come up with a smart way of flushing your engine block without putting the crap back into your radiator?

I was thinking of setting up a simple temp tank to run a flush/cleaning soln for an hour, then look to give it a really good flush with clean hose water before fitting recon rad

[slide]

Remove thermostat and flush block (and heater too!) both ways with hose until it runs clear, this will remove most of the crap. Then use flush additive to remove the rest of the stuck in crud. Rinse out fully, and use heaps good quality antifreeze (temporily fill cooling system with water measuring it as you go, then drain and make sure you use at least 50% of that volume of antifreeze)

[Mr Revhead]

I'm assuming you will do this before refitting the radiator.
Go to Para rubber or similar and buy some bungs so you can block the coolant inlet/outlet. Pull a heater hose off. put the garden hose on one end of the heater hose and turn it on.
Then put the hose up the other end of the heater hose to reverse the flush. Unblock one coolant inlet/outlet at a time to get flow out there.
Radiator flush will not remove heavy rust scales. You need flow and a little pressure to remove heavy deposits.
Radiator flush won't unblock anything, it will help clean any oil sludge and some build up on galleries but it won't make any difference to the rust silt in the heater core and wedged in the block.

Usually I do the above when doing a coolant change but with the radiator in place. Put the cap on the rad, undo the heater hose flush several times each way, block one heater hose undo rad bung/rad cap and alternate until clean.

[mudlva]

You can buy filter socks that are fitted into the outlet hose this will pick up any stuff that us left after you have used the hose

[Mehrts]

I see the yanks install filters to catch casting sand and other crap in their cooling systems. It doesn't sound like a bad idea too.

Wondering if anyone here has done anything in the way of a similar setup?

[ChurchurDan]

One of my customers put an in line filter in his top hose as he was having trouble with his radiator getting blocked. From memory it was for an irrigator and screws together so it is easy to pull apart and clean the filter.

[smurf182]

You can buy filter socks that are fitted into the outlet hose this will pick up any stuff that us left after you have used the hose

I would be real keen to clean this regularly, particularly right after it's installed as it seems like a great way to block your cooling system if it does it's job right.

[mudlva]

You can buy filter socks that are fitted into the outlet hose this will pick up any stuff that us left after you have used the hose

I would be real keen to clean this regularly, particularly right after it's installed as it seems like a great way to block your cooling system if it does it's job right.

Yep very correct. But easier tp clean or replace a filter than have the radiator recleaned

[Craydiver]

I flushed my block doing the following:
Removed thermostat,Thoroughly flushed the system both ways using heater hose with clean water
I then put in 2x Rad flush bottles then connected my top and bottom hoses with a plastic pipe (actually was 40mm plastic waste pipe) - that way the system was able to fully recirc this flush soln,
Started engine ,let this run for about 40min, then completely drained the system.
I then reflushed the entire system with water both ways.
Then I ran the engine again with just fresh water going in to bottom hose and top hose dumping, again ran this for about 15min.

looked pretty clean to me at the end

Then refitted thermostat and rad with new coolant.