I drained my radiator and block. I was filling it back up through the reservoir but only 3 gallons made it in. According to the manual, it should take 5.75 gallons. I ran the engine for 20 minutes in the driveway but the coolant still did not circulate to give me more room to add more coolant.

What did I do wrong?

Also, was I supposed to flush it with anything before putting new coolant in? It still had the original coolant, I'm pretty sure it was the orange stuff, although it came out brown during draining... The stuff I added was Havoline Extended Life (orange)...

Thanks in advance.

 

Di you leave the top hose diconnected when filling? Did you pull the block drains from BOTH sides of the block..??

Yea, flush it with a hose and water..

 

Yes I did leave the top hose connected when I was filling (didn't know I had to). No, I did not pull both drain plugs, I thought there was only one.

I followed these instructions here http://members.shaw.ca/pferlow/f150_coolant_change.htm . The thread where it was listed said it was very thorough, so I assumed it was all I had to do.

At this point, how can I fix this? Do I need to drain the new fluid I just put in there? The only reason I wanted to do a full flush was to make sure I get all the OE coolant out of there because I wasn't sure if it was the orange or green stuff. Like I said in the original post, it was brown (probably because I waited so long to change).

Does anyone have a detailed step instruction on the proper procedure for my '01 4.6L??

Thanks