When flushing the coolant system on a 2001 Taurus where is the valve located to drain the old antifreeze?

Answer 1

The coolant reservoir serves as the radiator refill cap and has a bottom hose that leads to a drain hose connection directly below near the front passenger side tire. Pull the hose connection down and squeeze the hose clamp with a vise grip to allow the drain hose connection to be separated. I used a screwdriver to help loosen the end of the rubber hose from the connection. This can be done with the car parked normally on the ground. Now remove the coolant reservoir cap to break the vacuum. About one gallon of coolant will immediately drain out, so have a container ready to catch it. Reclamp the hose and refill the reservoir with the same amount of water you drained out. Drive the car and heat it up good a couple times, each time repeating the drain and refill above using distilled water (wait for the engine to cool sufficiently before draining!). After the last coolant system flush, refill with the reservoir with the new 50/50 concentration. PS: Since the Taurus coolant system capacity is about 11 quarts, use 100% antifreeze to refill the reservoir after the last drain to achieve the 50/50 water/coolant concentration recommended. when flushing the cooling system don't even go looking for the radiator drain just remove the lower rad hose ---the drain plug is dificult and too small to be of any value in a fllush job