Haynes manual no help, and neither is the F-T instructions. I'm looking at our other vehicles and it would be no problem with the heater hoses straight and easily followed. The picture in Haynes is for the V6. On the 5.0 the two heater core hoses are both curved and down at the rear. How do you install a Flushing-T on this?
I've been doing a search on this thread since I need to flush my 96 5.0 liter. I have the same question. Where to put the tee.
I'm using my 68 Fairlane 302 for comparison.
If you follow the fitting coming out of the intake manifold, just behind the snorkel you can see the cap of the flush tee.
On the Explorer it appears the hose with the heater valve connects to a pipe that runs to the water pump and is connected with those two short curved hoses.
So the flush tee would need to go in hose without the heater valve. But as mentioned it's got some curves in it.
Since the Fairlane has no heater valve but rather a flap that diverts cold air from the passenger cowl vent, it probably doesn't matter on the Explorer either where the flush tee goes. So the heater valve can be removed and a flush tee is installed temporarily.
The only thing I don't like about doing this is I remove the cap off the flush tee when refilling the radiator to purge any air out of the system. This at least helps. So when putting the valve back in some coolant maybe lost.
Although I generally mix antifreeze in a bucket to get a 50/50 mixture, keep in mind that even if you drain the radiator there is still coolant left in the block so adding 50/50 will throw the mixture off. I generally add half that in antifreeze then top off the rest with water. So since the 5.0 Explorer uses 13 quarts you would need to add 6-7 quarts of antifreeze.
There was mention about using CLR as a cleaning agent harming alumnium. I suppose if you left the stuff in the engine overnight it might cause harm but I don't see how it could do any damage just from doing a general flushing. That stuff Prestone sells is probably the same stuff anyway.
One more thing the Chilton's manual says there is a drain **** on the passenger side but I haven't found one. Maybe that's just a generic photo.
Here's a neat funnel I use on my other cars:
, kept telling me they were only regular ones.
