Prestone T-Fitting Flush Kit Opinion ?

Today i went to walamrt and purchased a prestone t-fitting flush kit along with some prestone non acidic flush cleaner. I have used another brand of cleaner flush before but never this t-connector thing. Does anyone have any experience with it ? How does it work ?

I havnt flushed my system since i put in this radiator in (GDI 3 core) about a 2 yrs ago, and i think its time. Is this gonna be ok or should i get it cleaned at a serevice place with their coolant machine.

???

Pete

I used one in my S10... I believe it gets mounted in the heater hose... The return line I think... Don't know if I worried which one... You can then drain your radiator, hook your hose to the tee, and let the hose run with the radiator cap off... This should remove most of the antifreeze. Then drain again, and then add your flush,(remove the hose and cap the tee), fill up the radiator, run the engine as the flush recommends. Drain, and repeat step 1 again... Then drain and fill back up... Atlease this is what I remember the proceedure being... Haven't done it with my Jeeps yet. Keep looking at the kit though. Just not enough time.....

Hope this helps,

Kevin

I've used them alot, the T goes in the heater return line. Generally what I do is to get new hoses, cut the old hose and put the T in. Then drain the system, refill with water and add the prestone 7 hour flush. Then I drive a day or so then back flush it. Drain system, replace hoses, refill with 50/50 mix of coolant and distilled water. Done. I also do the thermostat when I do this too.

Why yuck-up a solid system with some plastic fitting? I tried one once and 5 years later it was too brittle to use anymore. For me, the benefits are low compared to simply disconnecting lower/upper hoses, remove the thermostat housing and flush the chunks out of the big openings on both the engine and radiator. Do that every 2-3 years, replace the rubber when needed and XJ engine is good for the long-haul. Radiator will probably need replacement eventually (8-10 years or so) with scale/lime buildup that can't be cleaned with over-counter products anyway. That can be minimized with distilled water and good glycol protection but who has distilled water around when you spring a leak away from home?

If you notice I put the T fitting on the old heater hose, not on the new one. As far as the flush goes, the 7 hour is a chemical that reverses the build up and breaks it down instead of sand blasting like the 15 min flushes do. The very first time I used it was on my 82 S10 2.8L, factory radiator with about 150,000mi on it. Drained it the nite before, refilled with water and 7 hour flush, then at 5am I headed out for my first service call in syracuse ny, about 3 hours away straight up interstate 81, did the call and headed home. I stopped for dinner and came back out, popped the pressure cap on the tank for a quick look see, totally unprepared for what it looked like. The cavern look was gone and the solder was shiny. Got home and back flushed it, used a big paint strainer into a 5 gallon spackle can. The crap that came out was flat out nasty.
Drained and refilled after replacing the hoses.

This is slightly off the subject. But I have read in a number of posts that the cooling system should be burped after replacing the thermostat. I have also read where you should drill a hole in the top of the thermostat so there won't be no air pockets in the head. What is the procedure for burping the engine. I was thinking that you had to get the engine hot enough to open the thermostat and then you had to add coolant. I just bought a 98 4.0 cherokee to weeks ago and it overheated on me yesterday so I was thinking of flushing the system, replacing the rad and thermostat. I also had to straighten out a huge kink in the exhaust just below the header collector. I'm sure that didn't help having the exhaust restricted. I also found that rad didn't have a fan shroud for the clutch fan which also don't help with the cooling. I just want to know if there is a certain procedure for burping the cooling system. Thanks for any info

In that case i guess i will try it this weekend and see.

How does this work tho, the thermostat stays closed when you flush it so essentially arent you only flushing 1/3 of the system ?

pete

Thats why I recommend the 7 hour flush, you drive it with the stuff in there and it cleans as you run it normally.

As for the tstat, the factory OEM one comes with the bleeder hole and a correctly fitting tstat gasket that already has the RTV applied. Simple swap just make sure to torque the two bolts to 22 or 24 ft/lbs. If you really plan on mainting this jeep a big 1/2 ft/lbs torque wrench and a good 3/8 torque wrench are a very good investment as is a factory service manaul.

As for the 'kink' on the down tube on the exhaust header, it's supposed to be there, it allows the front driveshaft to fully articulate when stuffing the front drivers side of the suspension.

The fan shroud is fairly important and so is a belt tension gauge, that serpentine belt is supposed to be around 160lbs on a used belt [one run more than 15 minutes], 180lbs on a new belt.

The fan clutch also comes into play, if it starts overheating in traffic and then cools down once on the open road then more than likely the fan clutch is bad.
Ancecdotal experience, if the fan 'roars' on a cold startup and then quiets down after about a minute the fan clutch is probably still good.

I just replaced my water pump, tstat and rad yesterday and today and after refilling it took about 30 min to get all the air out or 'burp' the system. Done by leaving the pressure cap off and letting it run, keeping the filler neck topped off, the mix of 50/50 coolant/distilled water will look like fizzy soda when there is air in there. Once the majority of it is out the overflow tank will take care of the rest..

Would I still need to BURP it on a 98 that doesn't have the same cooling system as the older ones?

And which hose do I connect the "T" into. As in, where does that hose lead to. The top or bottom of the water pump?

It goes on the thinner of the two hoses, bottom one.

The idea is sound, but the plastic flush fittings are shite. If you do a search, you should be able to find where I outline making one out of OTS bass plumbing parts for a few bucks - then it should last pretty much forever.

If you can't find the instructions (I've covered this at least six times by now...) PM me and I'll help you get set up.

I just can't feature buying a part "made to fail" when I can make something better myself...

Hell - if you have too much trouble, I might have one around that I pulled when I did my "copper heater hose" mod (details forthcoming) that I might be convinced to part with...

5-90

Thanks for the info RickP. I just wanted to be sure about the burp thing. It's just like I've done to my other cars. If that kink is factory, I don't know what they were thinking. I heated up my pipe and straighten it out any way. It looked like it was almost closing my exhaust shut so I just had to do something about it. I took the pipe to an exhaust shop and they also could not believe how kinked the pipe was. I have a picture but I don't know how to post it on this site. Looks like my next job is to find a rad. shroud.

Is the thinner one the one that has the metal pipe fitting on it? The cheep metal pipe fitting.
Also...does a 98 need to be burped?

XJXJ said:

Why yuck-up a solid system with some plastic fitting? I tried one once and 5 years later it was too brittle to use anymore. ....

Click to expand...

One can buy the platic t fittings individually off the rack at most auto parts store for about $3.00. In fact, I keep a couple spare in my Jeep.

I do agree with you that they become brittle over time. But I just change the plastic t out every other year when I flush out the radiator. It's only $3.00 more each fluid change, towards a convenient flush system....

Ivan

Ivan said:

One can buy the platic t fittings individually off the rack at most auto parts store for about $3.00. In fact, I keep a couple spare in my Jeep.

I do agree with you that they become brittle over time. But I just change the plastic t out every other year when I flush out the radiator. It's only $3.00 more each fluid change, towards a convenient flush system....

Ivan

Click to expand...

I don't even do that, every 2 years when I replace the hoses I use the old hose thats on there. Flushing every 2 years has worked out OK for me. Then when I put the new hoses on they don't get the T till the next time.

The hose that has the metal pipe is the supply hose to the heater core. The one under it is where the T goes.

Instead of hooking up the cold water garden hose I crank up the hi-setting on my oil burner, a bit higher than that of t-stat open point, and run HOT water from the furnace into the t-fitting.

I don't understand how things can hot enough in there to really scour the cooling system with a constant supply of cold water, plus never had to use any kind of backflush chemical, don't want to.

Don't know if this makes a significant difference but after the stat opens the water coming out is almost immediately clean.
Like the idea about a brass t-fitting, though I'm completely confident that the polymer Prestone uses will hold up at least a couple of years. Anyways, just carry some copper tubing, clamps, and a length of replacement hose you'll probably never have to use anyways.

RichP said:

The hose that has the metal pipe is the supply hose to the heater core. The one under it is where the T goes.

Click to expand...

This is gonna sound dumb, but here goes...........

OK.... lets see if I have this right.
This is on a 1991 xj with the 4.0.
The hose with the metal pipe (goes to the waterpump) is the supply to the heater core. For me this is the bottom hose.
So I need to put the "T" in the top hose that goes to the t-stat houseing?

I like it - but I'm too far from my water heater. I'll probably build one in out in the shop, when I finally get somewhere I can build my house (making for a total of three - one for the shop, one for the house, and one for MY SHOWER!)

The cold water isn't what does the work (unfortunately) - it's the varying level of acids in the flush. How much acid there is depends on which flush you bought.

5-90

mikeny59 said:

Instead of hooking up the cold water garden hose I crank up the hi-setting on my oil burner, a bit higher than that of t-stat open point, and run HOT water from the furnace into the t-fitting.

I don't understand how things can hot enough in there to really scour the cooling system with a constant supply of cold water, plus never had to use any kind of backflush chemical, don't want to.

Don't know if this makes a significant difference but after the stat opens the water coming out is almost immediately clean.
Like the idea about a brass t-fitting, though I'm completely confident that the polymer Prestone uses will hold up at least a couple of years. Anyways, just carry some copper tubing, clamps, and a length of replacement hose you'll probably never have to use anyways.

Click to expand...

I should have added that I put a slop sink in my garage (furnace is located at the other end of the house) and the faucet has a garden hose thread at the end of it. You can mix hot and cold water at will. Sears Hardware has a good sink with legs for about $39. Fiberglass or plastic, but heavy duty.

Iv'e backflushed with only water religiously since I bought my '98, I'm afraid that a backflush solution now may have the same effect as an oil or tranny change additive, just loosen crap that would have never begun circulating if left undisturbed. Any logic there?!?:repair:

drifto77 said:

This is gonna sound dumb, but here goes...........

OK.... lets see if I have this right.
This is on a 1991 xj with the 4.0.
The hose with the metal pipe (goes to the waterpump) is the supply to the heater core. For me this is the bottom hose.
So I need to put the "T" in the top hose that goes to the t-stat houseing?

Click to expand...

You want to use the smaller of the two hoses. I have actually used the top one but my backflushing is not so much to blow debris free as it is to remove the cleaner/flush. I also pull the thermostat when I do it so that I get unrestricted flow. That using hot water from the hot water heater is a good idea though.