Coolant Question

[RoGuE]

Hey, I've been here a while but mostly lurk.

 

Later today I am going to be flushing my coolant with a T on the heater inlet hose. Anyway, there is some confusion about the max capacity. The car is a 2002 Suburban with the 5.3L.

 

The manual says:

 

Vortec 5300 with front A/C: 14.4 quarts

Vortec 5300 with front and rear A/C: 15.8 quarts

 

and at the bottom it says: Add one liter if equipped with rear heating for all engines.

 

It has 3 rows of vents, and can get A/C and heat in the rear obviously, so does that mean I go by the 15.8 quarts + 1 Liter (making it 16.9 quarts)?

 

So, it will be about 17 quarts total?

 

Thanks in advance. Hopefully someone will answer soon so I know before starting this. It's my dads car and he took the day off so I do this for him.

[jro909]

add fluid until its level with the hot/cold marker on the overflow..it won't blow up if you over fill it a little

[RoGuE]

Thanks

 

But I need to know the exact capacity to get the correct 50% mixture. I'm going to be using concentrate Dexcool by just pouring it into the tank, and then topping that off with water.

[stlavsa]

Thanks

 

But I need to know the exact capacity to get the correct 50% mixture. I'm going to be using concentrate Dexcool by just pouring it into the tank, and then topping that off with water.

 

Count on it being 17 quarts total. IF your mixture ends up a quart heavy on the coolant its not going to be the end of the world. I would rather have a lil more coolant than water vs the coolant being a little over diluted.

[jro909]

yes being a tad coolant heavy won't hurt anything, hell i know folks that have ran straight water after the coolant boiled out from an extreme level of towing

[ar52kortlang]

Are you going to be using distilled water?

 

Just do it a quart/gallon at a time and should be very close--

[RoGuE]

Yeah, I'm using distilled. I'm going to flush with the garden hose, and then displace the tap water by draining the radiator and displacing the rest with distilled.

 

As long as I know 17 quarts is the correct amount, it shouldn't be too hard otherwise. I'm just about to start by draining the radiator right now.