How to Drain Fill and Bleed Coolant Cooling System 2009-17 Chevy Traverse
Created on: 2018-02-23
Learn how to drain, fill, and bleed the cooling system on the 09-17 Chevy Traverse with this how-to video
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step 1 :Draining the Coolant
- Make sure the engine is cool
- Open the hood
- Have a drain pan ready
- Loosen the lower radiator hose clamp with slip joint pliers
- Pull the hose off the engine
- Direct the fluid into the drain bucket
- Allow the coolant to drain completely
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step 2 :Removing the Engine Compartment Shield
- Remove the ten plastic clips from the engine compartment shield with a trim tool or flat blade screwdriver
- Lift the shield off the engine compartment
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step 3 :Filling the Coolant
- Push the lower radiator hose onto the engine
- Tighten the hose clamp with slip joint pliers
- Twist the radiator cap off the radiator
- Add coolant to the radiator, using a funnel
- Add coolant to the overflow reservoir, using a funnel
- Twist on the radiator cap
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step 4 :Bleeding the Cooling System
- Start the engine
- Bring the engine to between 2,000 and 2,500 RPM
- Bring the engine to operating temperature
- Check the coolant level
- Add coolant to the overflow reservoir as necessary
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step 5 :Installing the Engine Compartment Shield
- Slide the engine compartment shield into place
- Push the ten plastic clips into the shield
- Close the hood
Tools needed
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Funnel
Anti-Freeze
Hi. I'm Mike from 1AAuto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years!
Go inside the vehicle and open up the hood. Put our drain bucket in place to catch and dispose of the coolant properly.
You can either drain the coolant from the lower radiator hose attached to the radiator or you can remove the hose clamp and the hose, from the top here, from the engine, and then direct the hose down into the bucket, which is what I'm going to do. The clamp will be the same on the bottom one. I'm just using some slip drain pliers. So if you squeeze it just the right way, it's got a little lock. It'll lock together. Then slide it down. Reach down and work on getting that hose off. You should always do this when the vehicle is cool. It's going to come gushing out here.
To remove this plastic shield that's on the front of the engine compartment, there are ten clips. Ten. Take a small, flat-bladed screwdriver or trim clip tool and pop them up to loosen them. You need to go in like this, and pull them out. If the middle comes out, it's okay. Then this rubber seal is clipped in here. Just kind of pop it out. Use a small flat-bladed screwdriver, just pop it up. Use a trim clip tool. These may break when you're taking them out. You might want to have some new ones on hand. If the middle comes out, it just pushes right back in there. Just repeat that for all the clips. These ones are a little trickier because they're deep inside here. Try to get this in here and pry them up. Just go along, do the same for all of them. This should just lift right off now. Then we'll put it aside.
We can install the lower radiator hose to the engine. Put that right into place. Hook on right to that little stop right there. Put the clamp roughly where it was. Get a flat-bladed screwdriver, tie it down. There it is. Snapped into place and sealed up.
To remove the radiator cap, it just unscrews. We're going to fill this system at the radiator so that we're not – you could fill it through the overflow bottle; it would just take a long time to fill, so I'm going to fill up the radiator and then I'm going to top off the overflow. You could use a regular funnel. We've got a special funnel that we're going to use, but it doesn't really matter because it will pressurize and bleed through the overflow, and we'll do that after we fill it. We're going to use a 50/50 mix of the appropriate coolant, which is DexCool, and fresh water.
So the line is on the back of the reservoir. I've filled the radiator. I'm going to remove the funnel. I might lose a little bit of coolant. It's almost topped off at the cold level. I'm just going to let a little coolant in. There it is. Put this back into our bottle. I’m going to remove this and replace our radiator cap.
The radiator is filled to the top, which is right where I want it. Now I need to run the vehicle, check the leaks, and then bleed the system. I start the vehicle in a safe place to have it running, so outside, and bring the RPMs up to between 2,000 and 2,500 RPM. So it comes up to operating temperature. I'll let it idle for three minutes, shut it off, let the vehicle cool, and then we'll recheck the coolant level and top-off if necessary. After that, the job will be complete.
Install the upper cover to the engine compartment. Slide it under that ground point. It's going to go over these rubber mounts here, both sides. You have to go under this weather strip. It’s the same thing for both sides. Reinstall all the push clips. It's easier to put the clips in if you pull out the center part. This is the last one. And that is complete. Close your hood.
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