DIY - 2014 Opel Corsa D 1.4: Fully flush the coolant

[@leemclaughlin3927]

That hidden menu for the coolant temp is spot on 👍 cheers for that info

[@TheMissingBolt]

You're welcome!

[@matthewjames8301]

Thank you so much for this video and for taking the time to create it. I have been wanting to do this for a while. Glad I found you. Sub'd and liked! :)

[@TheMissingBolt]

Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!

[@evieemaya88]

Love you r videos, very detailed keep them coming on the Vauxhall Corsa. Would love to see a gearbox oil change

[@TheMissingBolt]

Thanks a lot! The gearbox on our Corsa isn't due for an oil change for another 2-3 years, since I replaced the oil when I installed the wide-ratio box. There is however a good video already on how to change the gearbox oil: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eHrZmH9or5WMfac. Hope it helps!

[@TheMissingBolt]

Actually, I just decided I want to swap the oil in the box, because I'm getting some hard shifts in 1st and 2nd during cold mornings. So stay tuned, I'm planning a gearbox oil change in a couple of weeks.

[@evieemaya88]

@@TheMissingBolt that's great to hear look forward to watching mate👍🏼

[@evieemaya88]

@@TheMissingBolt hey pal did you ever get round to doin the gearbox oil change?

[@TheMissingBolt]

@@evieemaya88 I did do it at the beginning of February, but I didn't have the time to edit and publish the video. It's currently in the making and I expect to have it published by the end of the week.

[@alejandroriosrubio8348]

Thanks ... you are the best

[@Professional_Youtube_Commenter]

imho you need to keep you old thermostat. dremel out the the inside of it. then firt it into your car. this method will cool the water so you the thermostat will shut off. it takes a good 10-15 minutes of driving to open the thermostate, and the temp is just too hot at that point to handle this way

[@TheMissingBolt]

That doesn't make much sense, really... It implies you've destroyed your thermostat, so why do that? With the steps described in the video you're replacing almost all of the old coolant without ever touching the thermostat.

[@lmr9512]

Can i use this method on other car models like mazda6 , i didnt do this last time in mazda this method is genius

[@TheMissingBolt]

This method only works on engines where the cooling system uses a reservoir with 2 hoses, one constantly pushing coolant in and one constantly pulling coolant out - this applies to many of the European-brand cars. On the other hand, most Asian-brand cars use a system where the pressure is maintained at the radiator and the reservoir has only one hose connected to it, which pushes or pulls fluid by very small amounts as the pressure in the system rises or falls. The method in this video only applies to the first category; for the second category your only choice is to do repeated drains and fills with distilled-water only, followed by 1 - 2 drains and fills with concentrated coolant (see my Kia video, kzbin.info/www/bejne/hWXHdHuDg7CYmbs, for more details). Check your coolant reservoir and depending on the number of hoses connected to it, you should use one method or the other.

[@lmr9512]

@@TheMissingBolt im doing this on 1.2 2014 Vauxhall Corsa is there any risk if it does happen to be the Asian system?

[@TheMissingBolt]

@@lmr9512 For the Corsa the same procedure should work. For the Asian system it'll simply not work, since you don't have a constant flow of coolant going into and out of the coolant reservoir.

[@lmr9512]

@@TheMissingBolt thank u

[@dimitrismessinis906]

Can you explain how you bypass the thermostat in order to fully flush the coolant system? When engine is cold thermostat is closed and coolant flow is pump-engine block-closed thermostat-pump and go on. At 60 degrees thermostat is half open in order to fully flush the system or its made via heat exchanger hose to expansion tank ?

[@TheMissingBolt]

When the engine is cold, the coolant that is pushed inside the radiator cannot go back to the water pump because of the closed thermostat; it can only go back to the expansion tank. Once you open the radiator drain plug, the coolant from the radiator is no longer blocked, so it can now come out after following this path: expansion tank -> heater core (partially) -> water pump -> engine block -> radiator. We actually want the thermostat to remain closed, since otherwise some of the coolant from the radiator will go back to the water pump instead of being forced out, which would make the entire procedure take longer.

[@edwardmurray8507]

​@@TheMissingBoltwhat settings do you have the heater controls on inside the car?

[@Sebah477]

Hey man thanks for the content and keep up the good work. I was wandering if you were using a smatrphone to film, which would leave you only with one free hand. You could use something like a gopro and some small mount, probably a forehead mount. Again thx and keep up the good work! 👍🏼

[@TheMissingBolt]

Hello! Indeed, I'm using my smartphone since it has a pretty decent camera. I thought about using a forehead camera, but I fear that all the head movement will make the video harder to watch. What I'm doing is using the phone on a tripod as much as possible, since that frees both my hands.

[@Sebah477]

@@TheMissingBolt you can try also several cameras at once and switch between them in editing. I would believe that the forehead mount would be a good, if not the best, view possible, being closest to your actual view. Anyway, keep up the good work man and thanks for the helping videos. 👍🏼

[@TheMissingBolt]

@@Sebah477 I'm glad you like the videos! I'll do some research into a forehead mount that can hold my phone while I work, as I don't want to invest in a GoPro at the moment.

[@jamiejeffries5017]

Hi, you’ll be able to see there’s a small leak on my car, on the two black wires connecting to the left side of the engine (right at the top near the belt? what are these little pipes / connectors? Are they to do with the coolant? I believe they are.

[@TheMissingBolt]

At the top left side of the engine is where the coolant enters the water pump. With age and wear it is possible for the pump's gasket and / or seal to leak. Around the engine's top you can, however, also get oil leaks from the valve cover, so you should check the consistency of the leaking fluid - if it's waterish or oilish. Also, if it's the coolant you should see the level in the reservoir dropping over time.

[@john-peters]

Can i use prestone coolant/ anti freeze. it’s a yellow ish colour. It says on the product it is compatible with all engine types

[@TheMissingBolt]

I'm not really sure about the Prestone All-Vehicles coolant mix...based on the SDS it appears to contain OAT coolant which is theoretically compatible with most European vehicles from 2000 upwards. I think Prestone Dex-Cool might be a better choice since it's GM-approved, meaning that it's supposedly guaranteed to work well with all Opel cars.

[@patrickbateman202]

Is 102 - 110c running temperature ok for a12xer engine (opel corsa 1.2 16v)

[@TheMissingBolt]

Yes, the thermostat on the 1.2 and 1.4 at least opens fully at around 102 - 103 degrees, so it's not unusual for the coolant to run at 100 - 110 degrees during normal operation.

[@patrickbateman202]

@@TheMissingBolt thanks for the answer i was at first scared that car is overheating and i did go through 2 thermostat's and wasted money cuz 1st one was perfectly fine..

[@WORKRECANDPLAY]

@@TheMissingBolt MIne's a 1.4 and operates between 100-110. Fans go mad at 107(ish) and bring it back down again .This constantly repeats while I drive and is annoying. Car runs good, all levels are good and no codes or errors to report. Are Corsas designed to run this way or is there something else I'm missing to get this to run cooler? Thanks.

[@TheMissingBolt]

@@WORKRECANDPLAY Sounds like your engine is running normally. These engines are designed to run a little hotter, with the fans kicking in at about 100C - 105C, lowering the temperature by roughly 10C and then shutting down (with these steps repeating as many times as necessary).

[@netanel1014]

How you disconnect the car computer (that connect to battery house)

[@TheMissingBolt]

I didn't disconnect it because I didn't need to.

[@alicankaradeniz1468]

I wonder whether the operation is same with 1.3 cdti or not.

[@TheMissingBolt]

In principle it should be, because the procedure isn't vehicle-specific. You're basically running a cleaner for 10 - 30 minutes through the system, then you're replacing all the existing coolant with distilled water, then you remove part of the distilled water and replace it with fresh concentrated coolant. But to be 100 % sure, I would first do a normal coolant drain, measure the volume that I got and compare it against the system's total coolant capacity. From what I've read, both the 1.3 CDTI and the 1.4 have the same coolant capacities (6 - 6.6 L).

[@seanwallace1972]

What about a 1.2 same operation?

[@TheMissingBolt]

@@seanwallace1972 The 1.2 has the same coolant capacity as the 1.4, but you have to visually inspect the cooling circuit as I did in the video. If it's the same or very similar to the 1.4, then you should be able to use the same procedure to do a flush. If not, you can always flush your coolant using the classical procedure: you do multiple drains and fills, each time filling only with distilled water (around 7 should suffice) and driving for a while after each fill; then you do 1 more drain and fill with concentrated antifreeze, in order to get the mix right. This procedure should best be done when it's not very cold outside, to avoid the water freezing in the pipes if you leave the car overnight between drains.

[@qq3528]

Are you already changed your Coil pack ? you recommend to buy china 50$ or OEM 150$ ?

[@TheMissingBolt]

My coil pack was replaced under warranty 7 years ago. As it's a critical component needed to make the spark plugs work correctly, I would definitely not buy a cheap alternative from an unknown brand. However, there are many quality alternatives available apart from OE. The part's number is Opel 1208093 / GM 55577898 and in Romania it's about 250 - 300 $ as OE. Good alternatives are NGK (180 $), Delphi and Bosch (about 120 $ each).

[@qq3528]

@@TheMissingBolt Thank you very much for the full answer . Hope your channel get bigger 🙏

[@MattDTLMaze]

Is this method and the HEPU also valid for the Corsa 1.2 petrol A12XER?

[@TheMissingBolt]

For the 1.2 you can use the same HEPU G12 coolant that I used, yes. Or if you prefer another coolant brand, it needs to match the specification GM 1940650. I don't have access to a Corsa equipped with an A12XER to visually check the coolant circuit, but if its layout is similar to the one on the A14XER in the video then the procedure should work for the 1.2 as well. But if you have any doubts, you can always do multiple drains and fills with distilled water only, followed by one more where you add only concentrated coolant.

[@MattDTLMaze]

Hello, I Just did the coolant flush some days ago and I also changed the reservoir with a brand new one, but I noticed that After a long drive if I open the reservoir cap there's no pressure, the car runs fine, no leaking, no overheating, heater Is working normally, what could It be? The new reservoir or perhaps the cap?

[@Zap1996]

Hy,you need to change your timing chain🤝

[@TheMissingBolt]

Not really. I check the car regularly, we passed 122k km and there are no signs of the timing chain rattling.

[@herrlip72]

I prefer using extra coolant to flush rather than distilled water

[@TheMissingBolt]

That works too. In my case, the concentrated coolant is about 10x more expensive than distilled water (price per liter), so it made sense to do the flushing with distilled water only and add fresh coolant only at the end. But if all you have is 50-50 pre-mixed, that'll work just as well.

[@szymon997ful]

Hot to drain water fully? Because i don't want to use a concentrate

[@TheMissingBolt]

On the Corsa you don't have a coolant drain plug on the engine block, so you can't drain all the coolant without having the engine running to pump it out through the radiator drain port (as you're seeing in this video). But if you do that, you'll end up with no coolant in the system while the engine is running, which introduces the big risk of overheating and I definitely don't recommend doing that. If you want to use pre-mixed (50 - 50) coolant, the best way is to simply do multiple drains and fills via the radiator and expansion tank.