SO,. it,s cold and i had no heat......

I did my usual thing,. drained the antifreeze from the 425,000km, old, gold, run of the mill, roady woody wagon,..
disconnected the heater hoses,. disconnected the "T" below the fill tank at the connection between the heater hose and the "T"
lifted up the lower hose,.poured some warm water in from a 1 gal jug,. added my special recipe,. (draino crystals couple of tablespoons i think) added a wee bit more water with the hose held up high,. tried to not breathe in the fumes (*HACK* COUGH* *CHOKE* [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] ) added more water and a bit of air pressure,.
and listened intently ready for the inevitable spurt from the top hose,. and finally this brown foamy crappy looking stuff fired out,. (yes all on me ,. yes i,m a slow learner that forgot from last time,.) so went at warp speed and rinsed off ,.(me that is) then returned and kept adding water and a little air pressure till i had nice clean water shooting downwards (see,. i did learn) on to the ground,. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Hooked stuff back up,. added some new kermit pee,.and now i,m toasty again,.
I also used nearly a whole can of expanding foam to fill up the rather large gaping hole behind the drivers rear wheel,. after we had washed,. chipped and blown out the 5-10lbs of solidified road dirt that was in there,.(car seems to be warmer AND quieter now,. wonder why?)
When i have an older car like this,. i try to NOT to flush the block,. unless i use a super strong solution,. and drive around for a couple of days,.
or you'll end up with the never ending nightmare of the loose rust follicles that keep swishing off the inside of the block to end up in your heater core (right billy? [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] ) So i just flush the core,. and i,m good for another couple of years or so,.
Caveat here: i learned a long time ago,. (the hard way of course [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] ) NOT to use TOO much air pressure,.
It can be confusing to the novice as to exactly where all the water keeps disappearing to,.and the answer is always painfull when you finally discover the 3" of water on the pass side floor,. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] and remember to disconnect from the tank,. or you'll flush abunch of crap into there and it'll chase around the system knocking off more rust etc,. (see how this works? let sleeping dogs and all that,.)
Now i,m sure there's a few of you internet engineers and space cowboys who might realise that this method is not written in the gm manual,. yes i,m aware of that,. But its written in the school of hard knocks manual that i adhere to,. and it works for me with my rusty high mile north eastern junk,.
YRMV,.
NWEOI
DSAOR
PDCC


Nick
with warm feet,. and a clear windsheild again,.

I just replace my coolant system filter once a year. Doesn't matter if the car is new to me or not. Thanks Autozone and their lifetime warranty!

Never thought of using Draino. Good idea. Wouldn't want to have it hanging around the aluminum bits for long, but as long as it gets flushed out quickly, can't see a down side. Thanks for the tip Nick.

Bill

I've used Purple Power before, but it had to sit in the core for about 20 minutes. The core was only partly plugged, though... so pressure from the garden hose was enough. Got a whole lot of brown crap outa there.

My '94 doesn't heat well, and it has a brand new core. Turns out the guy that installed the core forgot to install the weatherstrips that keep air from just blowing around the core.

Good deal Nick! You need to make some YouTube videos on "the school of hard knocks repair manual". You would be a rich man

Chris