How to change thermostat?

[meeper]

whats the proper way to drain and refill the fluid?

[Shibby1485]

open the coolant bottle, pull the plug from the rideplate and let it drain...

u'll never get it all out tho... unless you take a shop vac or compressed air and blow it thru and stuff... in which case the antifreeze will be spraying and shooting all over the place out the rideplate... not worth the mess and slimy caoting ur garage floor will get

just drain it as best you can, pull the thermostat off and watch a little more antifreeze drain into ur hull and make it nice and messy, and put the new one on and connect the hoses...

refill the system... everyone has their own method, here's what i like personally as it's never given me an overheat

put the plug back in the rideplate and fill the bottle up to the max point... now take the big rubber 1" hose going from the thermo to the cylinder head and squeeze it repeatedly by hand... it pushes ALOT of air bubbles out and u'll see the coolant level drop... fill it back up again and squueze some more and see if it drops anymore, if not then leave the cap off still..

now flush the machine on the hose... u need to run it enough that the coolant reaches 180+ degrees so the thermo opens and the system bleeds itself...may take 5+ minutes ... run it on the flush for awhile with the cap off

then u should be good to go... put the cap back on and go ride

[Franko]

Put a bucket behind the ski, remove the allen bolt at the end of the ride plate, and move out of the way When it stops draining, pinch the coolant hoses to get as much out as you can. You will still have a mess in your hull when you remove the t-stat (or at least I always do).

[The Bandit]

I gave the coolant bottle a slight blow job to get most of it out.

[Shibby1485]

i'm guilty as charged also... since steve went and confessed first...

or maybe it's just a steve thing that him and I give our bottles blow jobs

[meeper]

cool, sounds easy.