I'm going to do my first drain/fill on my truck (2004 F150 w/5.4L V8). I realize this is usually a quick and easy thing but are there any gotcha's? I recall an older car I had that I had a hard time bleeding the air out of the system afterwards.

What's the general steps to getting this done with no aggravation? Truck has 99,000 miles on it now.

Thanks

 

Remove the thermostat and completely flush the system. Then replace with new thermo.

Fill with 50/50 mix coolant/water. Start up with heater on high heat and fan on continue to fill as it takes on more coolant to fill up the entire system through heater core and hoses. You can throttle it up very slightly to get the water pump to move the water more.

 

Use distilled water. But then if you are flushing it, it's kinda hard not to use tap water..

Theres drain plugs in the engine block, where you can drain it. Lather the threads in antiseize when you put them back in.

 

I can't tell you the correct way to do it, but let me pass on my recent experience. I just replaced my radiator with a Ford Racing aluminum radiator.

I drained the radiator using the pet****, but when I removed the lower radiator hose from the radiator, a whole lot more coolant came out. Between filling the radiator and the intercooler (which can't hold that much coolant) I used over 4 gallons of 50/50 coolant mixture. Zerex G-05 is compatible with Ford's coolant for these trucks.

I have a 2008, so I don't know if your setup is similar. I didn't have any difficulties with air trapped in the system, but I did need to add coolant (a third gallon of coolant) after a full warm-up cycle. Distilled water is at any grocery store and a little over $1/ gal. Don't use tap water except to flush the system with water. If you do that, I'd use a chemical additive for that purpose to help remove any scale in the radiator.