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What have you done to your 5 ton this week?

JohnnyBM931A2

Member
877
1
18
Location
Crystal Lake, Illinois
Put my top pipe on the truck.. Almost done with the muffler replacement project. Only thing left to do is install the freshly painted heat shield. Ran the truck to check for any exhaust leaks, and then took my brother for his first drive in it.. He was quite amused :D

Finally received the 3/4" silicone hose that I ordered to replace the aftercooler coolant lines, and also one to replace the lower rad "hump" hose in case I damage it.
 

JohnnyBM931A2

Member
877
1
18
Location
Crystal Lake, Illinois
Today I finally started my coolant replacement/hose replacement/block heater install. All I really accomplished was draining the coolant. Man.. That SUCKED! I spent almost 3 hours doing it :( At the beginning everything was going ok. As expected, the radiator drain was seized.. The little wings were just spinning around the threaded portion. But rather than loosening up my lower radiator hose, I chose to unscrew the whole drain valve using a 9/16" open end wrench. Came out no problem. That's when the fun began.. Despite having clean green coolant dripping onto my driveway from the aftercooler hoses, and clean green coolant in the overflow tank, the coolant that I drained out was DISGUSTING. Not quite as bad as the recent pictures that someone posted, but it was still nasty.. Reminded me of the color of the cheap liquid "squirt" butter that they have at low priced theaters. So, my original plan of draining out the coolant as much as possible, then putting the new stuff in went out the window. I started the process of flushing the system with clean water, and that was the part that sucked. Gallon after gallon after gallon... By the time I was done I ended up with 54 gallons of coolant/water mix that I now have to dispose of somewhere :( By the end it was about 95% clear water, and that's as good as I can get it. It was getting dark out, and I had no more containers to put the old coolant in. Also made quite a mess all over my driveway.. The old coolant and water hit the glad hand as it came out and was splashing everywhere. Used 2 giant bags of absorbent from NAPA.. Good times. At least that part of the job is over with.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be nice as well, so I will start getting those hoses replaced. Hopefully the bracket that holds the intake pipe in place will come off easy enough.. It's right above 2 of the aftercooler hoses that I need to replace. After the hoses are done I will get the block heater installed.. Hopefully that goes ok.
 

mdemars03

Member
254
0
16
Location
El Paso, Texas
I still need to do a coolant system flush. Took my truck offroading a couple weeks ago and the shutterstat quit working on me. The truck started overheating and it was all just an orange/brownish color that was boiling out of the overflow. We bypassed the shutterstat and added the water we had at the time (I have added more since) and it is doing fine but I still think I need to flush the coolant system and get all fresh coolant.
 

JohnnyBM931A2

Member
877
1
18
Location
Crystal Lake, Illinois
I still need to do a coolant system flush. Took my truck offroading a couple weeks ago and the shutterstat quit working on me. The truck started overheating and it was all just an orange/brownish color that was boiling out of the overflow. We bypassed the shutterstat and added the water we had at the time (I have added more since) and it is doing fine but I still think I need to flush the coolant system and get all fresh coolant.
All I can say is GOOD IDEA.. You'll be happy to get the coffee/butter juice/diarrhea out of there. FYI, I tried using the trick that someone mentioned.. Palmolive mixed in with a few gallons of the water. It worked ok, but not much of a difference versus regular water. I left the drain out, and poured 2 or 3 gallons of water in through the overflow tank. Once all of that came back out, I installed the drain plug, added 4 gallons or so of water, and ran the truck. Then I drained it, and repeated the process. I did it like 5 or 6 times. Seemed to work pretty well. It's certainly a lot more clean inside there compared to when I started.
 

Ford Mechanic

Active member
1,805
6
38
Location
Edenton, NC
You know it's really not to hard to pull the radiator tanks and clean the radiator. That was the first thing I did. Pulled all the hoses flushed them, the block and the Trans cooler. I thought about pulling alot of those freeze plugs they're not very hard to change either. You can get the radiator tank gaskets from Memphis Equipment
 

JohnnyBM931A2

Member
877
1
18
Location
Crystal Lake, Illinois
You know it's really not to hard to pull the radiator tanks and clean the radiator. That was the first thing I did. Pulled all the hoses flushed them, the block and the Trans cooler. I thought about pulling alot of those freeze plugs they're not very hard to change either. You can get the radiator tank gaskets from Memphis Equipment
Perhaps. I have a limited amount of time after work, and Winter has already started to show up.. Been below freezing several nights lately. I need to get this finished as soon as possible. Worst case I can do the coolant again in the Spring. At that point I could do the radiator too.
 

MtnSnow

New member
1,466
14
0
Location
NSL, UT
Do NOT leave just plain water in the system over night if you are having freezing temps as the oil cooler/trans cooler are usually the first to get freeze damage.
 

JohnnyBM931A2

Member
877
1
18
Location
Crystal Lake, Illinois
Do NOT leave just plain water in the system over night if you are having freezing temps as the oil cooler/trans cooler are usually the first to get freeze damage.
Of course. I had thought about that. I knew the temp wasn't going to drop below 41 last night, which is why I went ahead and started this process yesterday. Otherwise I would have waited until this morning to start.

I'm glad I was able to start it yesterday.. It took longer than I thought it would.
 

Another Ahab

Well-known member
17,828
4,163
113
Location
Alexandria, VA
Today I finally started my coolant replacement/hose replacement/block heater install. All I really accomplished was draining the coolant. Man.. That SUCKED! I spent almost 3 hours doing it By the time I was done I ended up with 54 gallons of coolant/water mix that I now have to dispose of somewhere By the end it was about 95% clear water, and that's as good as I can get it. It was getting dark out, and I had no more containers to put the old coolant in. Also made quite a mess all over my driveway.. The old coolant and water hit the glad hand as it came out and was splashing everywhere. Used 2 giant bags of absorbent from NAPA.. Good times. At least that part of the job is over with.
No good deed goes unpunished. :mrgreen:
 

JohnnyBM931A2

Member
877
1
18
Location
Crystal Lake, Illinois
Today I finished up my project.. It wasn't the biggest project that I've ever undertaken, but I still felt quite accomplished :)

Popped out the freeze plug (very easy..2 taps with a 2 foot screwdriver) and installed my new 1000w block heater, then I removed the intake pipe mount and pulled the 2 coolant pipes going to/from the aftercooler. Those 4 little hoses were in pretty rough shape. In accordance with my current policy (every painted part that I take off gets repainted before I put it back on,) I sanded, primed, and painted the aftercooler pipes with black high temp paint. Then I cut 4 3" pieces of the new black silicone hose, and picked up 8 new clamps from NAPA. Looks quite nice.. Certainly better than the messy crusty improperly cut hoses that I replaced :)

Once that was all taken care of, I re-installed the intake pipe mount, and started the process of refilling the system with the proper coolant. No leaks. Bled the aftercooler and heater core and ran the truck up to operating temp. Added a little more coolant after that to bring it up to the proper level. Still no leaks :)

After installing my block heater, I did discover something that made me feel like an idiot.. I realized that the inner fenders just slide out to make it easier to work on the engine. I can't believe I never realized that aua
 

infidel got me

Well-known member
1,685
32
48
Location
Newberry, Florida
Finished painting my truck Friday, and I think I found out my problem with the behr paint. I was using the plain, old, flat, paint. This time I got behr with satan finish, whole different animal. I purple powered the underside twice and power washed twice. It has a little more shine than I'd like, but if it washes up easier. I'll take it.
 
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