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She's running a little cool, so I figured I'd throw in a new thermostat. The radiator's petcock is nestled into the front crossmember, and it seems if I released it, coolant would go everywhere. I can't even see the petcock from underneath, I had to pull the airbox off to even see it, since the base of the rad sits in that crossmember. Is this correct? How do I properly drain my coolant?

with a large catch bucket! lol sadly. others may have a trick, like slipping a large enough hose over the opening. i'm not sure, i pulled the lower rad hose to drain mine...

It's going to make a mess unless you have a very large/wide drain pan that can cover the cradle of under the car. Cardboard, sand, zorball and rags are going to be your friends here.

Feel lucky if you can get the petcock to open. They tend to get stuck and you sure don't want to break it.

Sometimes soaking the drain plug with a top shelf penetrating oil and running the engine up to operating temp with a once more soaking will give you better odds for it breaking free rather than just breaking on you.

Put a hose on the petcock.

If all you are going to do is change the t-stat, it sits right under where the top hose goes into the engine and uses an o-ring. You will lose very little coolant by just changing the t-stat.

you dont really want to drain coolant (from a jack stand perspective point) if you get it up to operating temp... hot stuff...

ronaconda wrote:If all you are going to do is change the t-stat, it sits right under where the top hose goes into the engine and uses an o-ring. You will lose very little coolant by just changing the t-stat.

I went to the hardware store, and they had a small siphon that fit into the breather hole of the tstat housing cap.