Proper way to fully drain, flush, and refill the coolant system?

Bought my son his first car and its a 2003 Jeep Liberty Renegade, and I think its about time for a coolant change. When I look in the coolant tank, the coolant is slightly murky, though not too much. I looked at the service manual and it mentions a cylinder block drain plug, but doesnt mention if it is required to remove it to fully drain the entire cooling system.

How would I go about draining,flushing, and replacing all the coolant without skipping any steps? I want to do it at home so my boy can learn how to do it himself.

To completely drain the block (assuming you have the V6), there is a drain plug on both sides.
To reach the one on the driver side you would need to remove the prop shaft between the transfer case and front diff. Then remove the starter motor.
I can,t remember if you can reach the one on the passenger side, or even see it.

I just drained what I could by removing the bottom radiator hose, then flushing through the radiator and block by disconnecting the top hose.

From what I remember you can only get about 50% drained, so can just top up with undiluted HOAT.

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Let me see if I understand.

You just removed the lower radiator hose (I'm guessing the petcock would work fine? Also, does this drain the resovoir tank as well?), then disconnected the upper radiator hose (the one that connects to the engine with the bleader valve)?

How did you go about flushing the block? Just pour down distilled water through the upper radiator hose into it?

For a reasonable price, the Dealer has a re-circulating machine that removes completely all of the old & installs the new HOAT coolant perfectly.
They also use de-minerlized and not tap water to worry about.
This is also a good time to get a new Mopar thermostat & any required Mopar hoses installed a well.

Don't use the petcock, they never reseal.

How many miles are on it? if you're over 100k and haven't replaced the Tstat, water pump or radiator yet, it'd be a good time to do so. Mopar radiators and tstat only!

LibertyTC said:

For a reasonable price, the Dealer has a re-circulating machine that removes completely all of the old & installs the new HOAT coolant perfectly.
They also use de-minerlized and not tap water to worry about.
This is also a good time to get a new Mopar thermostat & any required Mopar hoses installed a well.

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"How would I go about draining,flushing, and replacing all the coolant without skipping any steps? I want to do it at home so my boy can learn how to do it himself."

homesoon said:

Let me see if I understand.

You just removed the lower radiator hose (I'm guessing the petcock would work fine? Also, does this drain the resovoir tank as well?), then disconnected the upper radiator hose (the one that connects to the engine with the bleader valve)?

How did you go about flushing the block? Just pour down distilled water through the upper radiator hose into it?

Click to expand...

The reservoir drains at the same time from what I remember, or you can just take the hose off the bottom.
I just use tap water through a hose pipe to flush, which I'm sure plenty of people will say is bad, but that's how I've always done it for thirty years on numerous vehicles without any problems.

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homesoon said:

"How would I go about draining,flushing, and replacing all the coolant without skipping any steps? I want to do it at home so my boy can learn how to do it himself."

Click to expand...

If wanting to teach your son a few things, replace all hoses, thermostat etc, not only will it be drained but also a lot safer and you know everything is new

I wish I woulda replaced all hoses, and water pump, when I replaced my tstat. Woulda saved me a lot of headaches down the road.

Listen to what these good people are saying. It is sound advice. Also, to reiterate, HOAT only. Zerex G-05 is what I use.