2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

[TilliamWe]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Any extended coolant will work, once you've got all the DexKill out. I personally fill mine with the green stuff afterwards.

No I don't think leaving the Prestone flush in that long will be a problem. But I don't think it's really going to help that much either. The HUGE amounts of water have worked the best for me. (2 Impalas and 1 Montana van)

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

TilliamWe,
Yeap, I agree with you, thank you for the help on this matter. In fact; tomorrow, I will begin my radiator flush. I will go ahead and drain the existing, nasty, looking stuff out of it and then I will clean water to the radiator and drain it as soon as the radiator fills up and do this several times until it is crystal clear water coming out of it. Once the water comes out clear I will refill it one more time and add my Prestone super radiator flush that was cheap anyway and top of with water and drive around with it for the rest of the week Then next week I will do several more flushes then go ahead and replace my thermostat with the correct one that is recommended for that truck and then fill up with 2 gallons of the WalMart Super Tech extended life coolant and then top off with water or should I do the three gallons. I am not sure? I do have a big radiator though for this truck. For the Transmission, I have decided since I don't want to the screw up the transmission, that I will take it in on the first Saturday in October, since I am off work that day and get them to suck all the transmission fluid out the transmission and then get them to replace the transmission filter and pan gasket and then refill with brand new transmission fluid and with both the coolant change/flush, thermostat change and the transmission fluid change and filter my truck will run like brand new, I hope, LOL. It runs good now but with the new fluids should really help it out tremendously, again, I hope.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Oops!!!! I will be taken it to AMMCO in town. The guy there at AMMCO gave me a pretty good price on sucking out the old transmission fluid and replacing the filter and gasket and then add brand new transmission fluid.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Yeap, AMMCO will be taken 100% out the old transmission fluid including the fluid inside the torque convertor. So that would be good to go.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Good plan.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

TilliamWe and the others,
Well I did the extensive radiator flush including the overflow reservoir tank and it was absolutely nasty brown looking crap. At first, when I took or removed the drain valve from the lower end of the radiator nothing at all came out. There must have been some pretty good crud buildup in the bottom of the radiator. Anyway, I went ahead and took a long nail and fished the radiators drain plug hole out and finally the nasty, crappy looking, brown old radiator coolant came out and after it was drained out completey I took a garden hose and I have one of those fireman style nozzles for the garden hose and I opened up at full blast after the radiator was filled up with clean water and forced stuff out of the drain valve opening and Walla!!! it drains really good now out of the radiators drain plug opening. So I did this several times, filled radiator with fresh clean water then opened the drain plug on the radiator until it was flowing strong and clear water and then after that was done filled up radiator one more time with fresh water after putting in my two bottles of Prestone super radiator flush and drove it a little bit afterward. Seems like it is coolling pretty good according to the temperature guage inside the truck dash. Anyway I will drive her for a little while and then drain and flush again next weekend several times and then put about three gallons of the full strength extended life coolant and top of with water. Will see how it works.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

When you flush it again, make sure you're getting the stuff out of the heater core, too.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

TilliamWe,
Hey, one more question. I noticed that after I drained and filled my radiator to flush it out several times I filled up the radiator and the overflow bottle and the overflow bottle spewed out the water/coolant and then after I let it cool down after driving around town today, it DID NOT HEAT up, but the radiator level was low on water/coolant. I topped it off but hope it is not nothing to worry about. Now, it did lose coolant before because my radiator cap gasket was broken no good so I replaced the radiator cap and had no lose of fluid. What do you think just a air leak and just monitor the fluid level in the radiator for now. Hopefully it will be ok the fluid level inside the radiator, that is. Let me know and yes I did run the heater so the flow will flush out the heater core also. Thank you.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Probably just air. Or crud messing with the thermostat.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

TilliamWe,
Yeap, I haven't replaced the thermostat yet because I am still waiting to flush the radiator system out again next weekend then I will swap out the thermostat and add new coolant to the system. I don't even know what the thermostat, the old one that is, looks like. If it is nasty looking or rusty looking like that nasty looking stuff that came out of the radiator yesterday then it might not be any good. Will see though.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

TilliamWe,
Yeap, the thermostat looks really easy to replace. Looks like I will have to remove the serpentine belt, remove the four mounting bolts that hold the air conditioner compressor on and then after the AC compressor removal move it out of the way so I can remove the thermostat housing to get at the thermostat for removal.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Yeah, that sounds REAL easy! (Kind of like removing the air cleaner inlet, wiper anchor and links, coil packs, and rotating my whole engine assembly forward to change the back 3 spark plugs in my 99 Montana, was EASY!)

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

TilliamWe,
Ha, Ha, ha yeap that last post you put on here about changing the spark plugs on your 99 Montana reminded me of my wifes last car, Her 1995 Pontiac Transport. Yeap, I had to replace the intake manifold gasket on it because it started leaking antifreeze out of it there in the corners and yeap those darn back spark plug wires are a pain to replace.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

It's taken me 8 hours just to change them (over 2 days of working on it), let alone put it back together!

Hope your thermostat job is MUCH easier than that!

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Yeap, I think it will be, the thermostat, that is on my truck. Yeap, the air conditioner hose runs right above the thermostat housing and upper radiator hose, from what I can see so that is why I have to remove the air conditioner compressor from it's mounting bracket with the hose still on and move it out of the way to get to that thermostat. One more question or two more questions. I noticed when I throttle up my truck with the radiator cap off the fluid inside the radiator gets lower and then it will rise again when letting off the throttle. Is that normal? I am thinking it is because the water pump is turning faster and pulling the coolant back into the engine to keep it cool at faster rpm. The thermostat install, does it just go in with the spring down and the tip up and does it get positioned at a certain way?

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Fluid level thing is pretty normal. Not sure the thermostat has anything special installation instructions. I have found the Haynes manuals sold at AutoZone to be a pretty good resource. In mine for 88-99 P/U's it just says to note how the one is installed that you are removing, and to make sure the spring goes down into the manifold.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Well after I have flushed the coolant system with water and Radiator Super Flush my coolant level in the radiator is always low and I, THINK I Hope, found out what it could cause that. I was checking the hose connection from the radiator to the overflow tank/reservoir and the rubber hose connection at the bottom of the overflow tank/reservoir was pretty lose becuase I could turn it with my fingers pretty easy and there seemed to be a very, ever so slight leak there when I ran my fingers around that connection so I took the whole overflow tank/reservoir out of the truck and cut about half inch of hose off both ends and reinstalled the hose and made the clamps tight that the hose/camp can not turn at all like it did before I did that and reinstalled the whole tank/reservoir back on the truck and hooked up the overflow tank/reservoir opposite hose end to the radiator and tightened that clamp down as well. I am thinking since I removed the overflow tank/reservoir hose assembly during the radiator flush that I did not tighten the clamps down like I should have on both the rubber tube on the radiator comming form the overflow tank/reservoir and the opposite end rubber hose on the overflow tank/reservoir. Hope my coolant level will stay pretty full inside the radiator now when it is cold and after the vehicle/truck has been driven. Wish me luck that, that was all it was lose hose connection at the coolant overflow tank/reservoir.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Yeap,
I just went outside to look at the coolant level inside my overflow tank/reservoir and I made a mark on it when I first shut off the vehicle and I just went out there to the truck after about one hour after shut down and the fluid level has went down about an inch roughly so that means the radiator must be sucking the coolant back inside of it as it cools down from the overflow tank/reservoir. I am glad to see that so maybe when I go out there to take the radiator cap off it should be pretty full of coolant/fluid, I hope. Will see though. Wish me luck, I need it, LOL.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Good luck!

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: 2000 year, C3500 Chevrolet Dually with 7.4 liter engine, Transmission question?

Yeap, I found some more stuff wrong with my, new to me truck, concerning the coolant leak issue. Well I found for one thing whoever replaced the water pump, half-butted, installing the clamp on the water pump side lower radiator hose connection so I repositioned the clamp coorectly and then I found the rubber hose bypass hose going from the top of the water pump to the lower intake manifold leaking so Ireplaced that hose this morning. Within this past week I have went to check the fluids in the truck and the front of the lower manifold was pretty wet and very wet around the bypass hose that is in the center front of the lower intake manifold. So so far, knock on wood, my head, LOL, It has not leaked anymore after cooling down and after replacing the bypass hose with a new one and repositioned a poorly installed clamp on the water pump connection lower radiator hose. Hopefully no more coolant leaks and a few weeks ago replaced a leaky radiator cap with a brand new one. So I should, I hop and pray, be good to go with no more coolant leaks. Next week I plan to purchase my extended life coolant and thermostat so I can put in new coolant/water.