I currently have the red dex-cool, I know now the dex-cool is orange in color, is it okay to mix these as when I drain my coolant I know I will not be able to get it all out of my system or is there a way to get it all drained out?

Thanks

 

Are you quite sure it already has Dex-Cool in it? If so, OAT stuff often gets red-er by the time it needs changing. Mix away. If it's bothering you that much, flush the system a couple of times with distilled water.

 

I read the coolant change article that mentions its an older version of it or something. My main question however is when I drain it how can I get all the coolant out of the system so that when I replace it with dex-cool the orange stuff I am just concerned about mixing them.

 

Hi

There are two separate drain plugs at least on 2.5 one for drain rad and system and one to drain engine, the rad one is a small plug under the left hand side of rad, there is a small hole in the cover under the front bumper to gain access to it or you can just remove the cove as I did and drain then. The second is a large Allen key plug either just above or below ( can't remember now) the oil filter this will then remove all water from your engine.

Hope this helps

 

Thats great, now when I get all this drained do I just fill it back up on the radiator and also fill the resevoir too or is there another place I should be putting the coolant as well....

 

You just fill from reservoir the x type has an auto bleed built in but make sure you don't have any air in the system before finalising and closing down your bonnet (hood)

 

Should I fill the reservoir when the car is running so it will flow or will it auto bleed with the engine off?

 

I just had to put a new radiator in my car a couple weeks ago. It was run a few times with no coolant (just ran to move in and out of the garage) so It had air through out the system. I left the cap off and filled the radiator. It bubbled down as the car warmed up. After it settled, ive been driving the car for a few weeks now with no problems and no loss of coolant. It was very straight forward.

 

Roger that thanks...my first coolant flush so I want to make sure I get it right.

 

What ever you do, do NOT use tap water.

USE ONLY DISTILLED WATER in your radiator to mix with the coolant.

(Not "filtered" water, not "softened" water, and not "reverse osmosis" water. Use only STEAM DISTILLED WATER - sometimes sold as "Demineralized" water. Pure rainwater works, too)

Minerals in the coolant water can and will react with all the dissimilar metals throughout the engine, and basically turn it into a giant low-voltage battery. The resultant electrolysis will just eat your engine and cooling system from the inside out.

For the most part, the water out of your garden hose is okay to flush the system out with, but do try to drain it thoroughly before you add the coolant/H2O mix.

Tap water used with the coolant is a major cause of head gasket failures. The soft copper head gasket gets eaten by electrolysis before most anything else. A "blown head gasket" with the X-Type seems to universally equate to an engine replacement. Water-pumps, Radiators and Heater Cores also also frequently fall vistim to electroylsis.

Kudos to you, bracester, for wanting to do it right!

(and welcome to the best Jaguar Forum on the planet!)

 

That is also great information and thanks...want to keep this baby running year over year