Progress continues. Everything is back together and working again.

Three things left to address are:

a) headliner (found a shop to try to repair existing headliner first)

b) fuel sender float repair/replace (will take it out this weekend to assess)

c) Cruise control (new sending unit to test and then install/seal in bellows and re-connect

After that she'll get an:

Oil change

Radiator flush and refill

Brake fluid bleed and refill

Trans fluid change

Hoping to have her ready for some wide open running by the end of the month. Just in time for some beautiful fall weather.

 

Any tips appreciated on the radiator flush and fill. I want to get much more coolant out than just what is in the radiator by activating the drain **** valve.

Is it best to just siphon out the coolant in the header tank?

Step 1 will be to start the car and turn the heater on high to open up the circulation to the heater core.

Step 2: Open up the radiator drain ****

Step 3: ?????

 

Just disconnect the vacuum pipe at heater valve. No vacuum should cause the valve to open fully.
I would be inclined to rig up something on my wet/dry shop vac and disconnect a couple of cooling system/ heater hoses and suck it out.

 

First, as long as the filler caps are off when you drain, the amount left will be pretty small.
If you are worried, then flushing the system with a hosepipe is probably the best thing to do. You could connect the hose to the heater outlet pipe where it joins the radiator (the small spigot that rises vertically from the radiator bottom hose outlet). Just release this pipe from its spigot and jam the hosepipe into it. It is component number 28 in this diagram

that fits into the spigot pointing upwards from the radiator bottom hose outlet shown in this one:

Then remove the thermostats, which anyway would be a good idea to renew (undo the casting that the top hoses attach to each side of the V) and the hose water will then be reverse flushing the heater core and the block and heads.
Greg

 

Regarding your hesitation issue, does it seem like some slack in the linkage may be the problem? There's a bushing on the back of the engine end of the throttle butterfly shaft that I've read is prone to deteriorating. I know both of mine were completely gone. I made replacements out of a nylon / teflon bushing from the Home Depot held in place by an "e" clip. Total cost for both sides about US$1 and pretty easy to install. If you'd like more information on that just let me know.

For draining the coolant, my radiator didn't have a drain, I got the coolant out by taking out the air bleed banjo bolt on top right of the radiator, put in a piece of 1/4" copper pipe, connected it to a small pump and pumped it out into a bucket. I was able to get almost all out this way - much less mess than what the manual recommended to drain it, which was taking off the bottom hose!

Hope this helps you, Eric

 

I have an '87 XJ V12. On the distributor cap there is a #1 next to one of the contact tower nearest the vent tube. Is that the 1A spark plug indicator?

Stupidly I forgot to mark the cap when I took the plug wires off. Thanks,

 

My only recommendation would be to use a propolene (sp) based coolant. Much safer if spilled for small animals or even kids.


Open the heater valve, definitely. Flow the flush through there or at least get a drain of some of the old stuff from there. Running the heater fan? Not sure what that would do???


We can's do driveway flushes around here anymore. Still have kit to do it. Using the garden hose...


The local oil change joints will do it but a tad pricey. They have disposal issues as well.


Reconditioned in situ ?/


Carl