Intercooler Drain & Refill

[Race Red Boss]

Anyone have a suggestion on how best to change out the Intercooler system coolant and refill? I have the Moroso IC tank which has a nice valve on it to empty that and assume the stock IC rad has a valve as well to empty it.....but what about flushing the system?

I'll be doing the cooling system and thought I should probably hit up the SC Intercooler system at the same time.

 

[HKusp]

I replaced my heat exchanger and put in the Davies Craig pump back in late January/early February and went through this. I would unhook the lower hose on the heat exchanger as well as drain the tank with the valve your reservoir has. let both drain as much as possible. Then if you are interested in fully flushing, I would hook everything back up and fill with distilled water. You can jumper your pump using the relay on the passenger side shock tower and circulate the water for a few mins. It is shown in the pic. Sorry when I resize the image, it rotates it for some reason. I can't figure how to upload the image properly.

 

[PM-Performance]

@HKusp , good thought on flushing. I never really thought about it. lol.
PS: I literally just realized what your screen name meant. lol. I never really thought about it and it just clicked

OP: I think Ford rates their fluids for like 100K miles or 200k miles depending on the fluid color.
Deff not a horrible idea to do, but keep that in mind.

 

[Catmonkey]

The stock system does not have a valve to drain. My suggestion is the remove the hose from the lowest hose connector on the heat exchanger. If it's nasty looking and the connector is not near the bottom, you might could flush what ever is in there by pouring distilled water into the other higher connector.

 

[Race Red Boss]

@ HKusp & PM-Performance - thanks for the great input.

Regarding the coolant, also need to keep in mind time elapsed. I think most coolants are like a new car warranty....good for EITHER number of miles OR time, i.e. 5 yrs.

 

[PM-Performance]

Gotcha, I guess I never really thought of that.
Good catch.

 

[hRnYg0aTw33d]

adding on to this, i will be doing my HE upgrade this weekend. Does everyone buy the pre-diluted FoMoCo coolant to re-fill the system, or does everyone just reuse their coolant and add distilled water to top off? i paid to have the dealer flush and replace my coolant system when i bought the car. its only got 5-6k miles on it.

 

[Catmonkey]

I usually mix my own. It never gets cold enough for a 50/50 mix here. But, not enough anti-freeze can destroy an intercooler.

 

[smokastang]

I replaced my heat exchanger on mine a couple weeks ago . I have the airlift vacuum tools . It made the fluid change in the heat exchanger so easy . I highly recommend it . Also my Ford dealer was the cheapest price on coolant

 

[Robert M]

I fully flushed my S/C cooling system a few months ago. I removed the hose from the inlet side of the S/C reservoir (upper hose) and at the I/C nipple, I then capped off the I/C reservoir upper nipple where the upper hose was removed. Then I installed a 90 degree turn down hose on the I/C nipple with a large ziploc type bag to catch the old fluid. Then I took a shop vac in the blower mode and blew all of the old fluid out using the fill cap on the reservoir as the place to blow with the shop vac. All fluid was blown out of the system from all hoses, and the H/E and I/C. Then I put new distilled water in the I/C reservoir and blew it completely through the system to clear any residual fluid. After fully flushing the system I put new coolant in the I/C reservoir and blew it through and was careful to add fluid to the reservoir and not allow air into the system, once I had clean new coolant coming into the ziploc baggy at the end of the 90 degree I/C hose that I had previously installed, I removed that 90 degree hose, removed the cap on the upper nipple of the I/C reservoir and put the oem hose back in place. <<<<No air pockets, no issues and a fully flushed I/C-H/E system. During this process I also added a drain **** to the lower hose on the H/E. If I can find the pictures of that, I will add them......

R

 

[Robert M]

Here is a picture of the final install. I blackened what I wanted to "blend-in" and not look "added" and used oem style clamps. I also did not cut my oem hose, but instead only added to the end of it toward the H/E nipple......

I started with a Kenne Bell Liquid Cooled fitting, added a petcock and sprayed it and it's clamps Black......

......................then I added a short piece of oem H/E hose to the spliced-in LC fitting and put it in place with the oem Silver hose clamp......

^^^^^^Fully functional for flushing a portion of the system (reservoir to the inlet side of the I/C), but additional steps are required to fully remove the I/C fluid.

R

 

[Race Red Boss]

Here is a picture of the final install. I blackened what I wanted to "blend-in" and not look "added" and used oem style clamps. I also did not cut my oem hose, but instead only added to the end of it toward the H/E nipple......

View attachment 1635013

I started with a Kenne Bell Liquid Cooled fitting, added a petcock and sprayed it and it's clamps Black......

View attachment 1635014

......................then I added a short piece of oem H/E hose to the spliced-in LC fitting and put it in place with the oem Silver hose clamp......

View attachment 1635015

^^^^^^Fully functional for flushing a portion of the system (reservoir to the inlet side of the I/C), but additional steps are required to fully remove the I/C fluid.

R

Great info. Robert. Thanks!