Coolant and Brake fluid renewal

[djheath]

Hi, Im knew to these forums but looking for some help.

I need to give my 1.6 2001 golf a major service and dont want to pay £289 that the ******** want!

I am happy doing everyting apart from the coolant change and brake fluid change. I have done these jobs before in other cars but not yet attempted it in my golf.

Does anyone know the procedure for coolant change? Where the drain plugs are and the process for filling? Do I need a header tank and how much coolant it takes? It currently has the pink G12 coolant and is on 50K miles.

Also I need to renew the brake fluid. What fluid is recommended and I heard I need to have the engine running to do this because of the ABS. Will an easi bleed kit suffice in bleeding the system?

Any tips would be great.

[m4xmw]

Use G12+ from GSf...

Undo bottom hose and drain out old coolant.
There may be a plug near the water pump to drain the block too.

Undo the expansion tank when refilling and keep it as the high point of the system to avoid airlocks.

Eezibleed that works off a spare tyre ill work great in bleeding abs systems.
Follow the instructions and it works a treat.
Just keep the brake fluid full as it pressurises the system.


Hope this helps

Mark

[v6dub]

Yeah it is not hard to change your coolant, i do not think that there is any drain plug, but all you need to do is take off the clip the holds the lowest hose on and drain out the water. Then i found out, if you take the botton hose off of the expantion tank and blow into it you will get the rest of the water out. Then what you can do is flush the system out with clean water, so keeping the bottom hose off pour plenty of water in to the expantion tank and wash out the system. To refill the system i found the best way is to do all the clips up. Then put about 3 liters of coolant in then mix with about 3 liters of water, never have more than 70% coolant in the system. i think the system holds about 7 liters, so you can top up with coolant if you want, just keep an eye on the level and don't over fill.
Hope this is of help.

[djheath]

Thats great. Many thanks for the replies.

I have just read my manual and it says the G12 coolant doesn't need changing during the cars lifetime? Is this correct, I thought it was only 5 years, 50K miles, so is it worthwhile giving it a change?

Also, do I have to have the engine running to bleed the brakes or is it ok with it off?

[v6dub]

I'm not sure about that, but i would just have a look at the condition of the coolant, if seams like it has dirt and stuff in the botton of the expantion tank then, change it. you can't do any harm, i did in to my golf no problems. Ask VW they will know for sure.

[djheath]

No worries,

Thanks.

[Davesmith]

About to flush and refil the coolant on my passat. Haynes says that you should take out the thermostat before flushing so that the water can circulate properly, also to put your heater setting on high to allow the coolant in you heater system to be flushed out aswell. Is this cooect?

[m4xmw]

If you dont have a drain plug on the water pump, removing the thermostat is the correct way to empty the coolant/ flush the coolant system.

I`ve just done mine and although VW state no change interval, the old coolant had some sediment in it.

A flush with a hose pipe into the rad top hose whilst the bottom one one disconnected removed a fair bit of silt from the radiator too.

I then added 2x1.5 litres of g12+ coolant along with demineralised water(I get it on tap from work)

Job was a good un and took around an hour in total.

Hope this is useful

Mark

[Davesmith]

Thanks for the help Mark. Just one other quick question. Will the collant in the heater matrix drain, or does the engine have to be run up to temperature with the heater on hot to flush it out?

[m4xmw]

Its a small residual amount left in the matrix, so dont worry about it.
I changed my coolant whilst cold and refilled with approx 6 litres of liquid in total.

I let the engine run once most of the coolant was put in, topping up as the level dropped and the cooalnt was warming.

If you need to bleed the system, undo the heater pipe( the one with a tiny hole in the pipe mear the clip... it leads into the car for the heater matrix.) and pull it forward to allow the hole to be a bleed point.
Once coolant flows through this little hole on the pipe, push it fully back and put the clip back on.

I find using needle nose pliers good to release these spring loaded hose clips.


Mark