Coolant bleeding headache

[zer0c123]

During the winter break I installed a new koyo radiator, oem water pump, oem thermostat, and a circuit sports overflow tank (weird fitment). I just could not get the air out of the system in time, and kept running into over heating issues. Therefore I had to put it on hold for 2 months until spring break. So today I decided to give it another shot. The system was filled up with a 50/50 mix through the radiator until coolant flowed out of the bleeder valve.

Today, I left the radiator cap off and I started the car with the heater on. About 15 min later coolant gushed out of the radiator. I immediately turned off the car.

This time I closed the radiator cap, and open the bleeder valve. I started the car with heater on full for about 40 min, while periodically revving the engine. Small amounts of coolant popped out of the bleeder valve during the 40 min. Also the heater reading stayed slightly below the middle the whole time. I then immediately took the car for a test drive.

I pulled out of my driveway onto to the block driving up hill. After about a minute, the temperature reading started to rise to H. I turned around and headed back to my garage. I waited for about 5-10 minutes until I looked under the hood. I noticed that one of the nuts on the CS tank was not tightened all the way and was leaking slightly. I could see the threads and white teflon. As I was tightening the nut, I could hear some gurgling sounds and then I saw the coolant level in the reservoir go down pretty fast.

Tomorrow I'm going put my car on ramps and try to get the air out of the system. I've seen so many different post regarding coolant bleeding methods, and I've read the guide in the article section. It's either leave the air bleeder valve closed or open, or leave radiator cap closed or open with engine on.

[4cefed]

Well, if you want to get tricky, my SRT-4 came with a schraeder valve in the bleeder hole. So to bleed the system, I losen the valve a bit and use my vacuum pump with catch can to suck all the air out.

I've noticed with my car that even a little bit of air behind the thermostat will keep it closed until the engine temp is very hot. If you want to take chances, you could run it a bit hot like that to get the thermostat to open. Mine will reach the first tick before "H" and stop and then after a few seconds it will cool right off.

[Chris28]

Put your car on jackstands and leave your rad cap off and bleeder hole open all night. The next morning top it off and put both back on. Lower from jackstands and turn it on. Drive around so there is good airflow to the radiator.

Mine got really hot right after I installed my mishimoto rad and altima fans, I freaked out thinking I wired the fans wrong but after like 15-20 seconds of it saying it was running really hot it went back to normal and has never been past halfway since.

[zer0c123]

Hmm everything seems to be good now. Been driving around all over the place and the temperature needle hasn't moved from where it's suppose to be. Only thing I'm noticing is that some coolant is slightly overflowing from the reservoir. I guess the system keeps burping itself.