digman

I am wanting to change my coolant in my truck its a 97 2500 auto. I have never done this before on any vehicle and i dont even know what to buy or where to begin. Can anyone help me with the steps and tell me whats the best things to buy and how much of it i need?

Opacity

Make sure you use distilled water NOT tap water when you mix with antifreeze!!! You can buy Distilled at any major supermarket. Let me stress this again USE DISTILLED WATER!!!

95's have 26 quarts in its cooling system, so thats 6.5 gallons. So if 97's are the same you need 3.5 gallons of antifreeze and 3 gallons of distilled water. Not cheap!!!

People may say stay away from high silica coolants like prestone but I actually like prestone, high quality stuff.

1stGen545

also disconnect your heater core lines from the hard lines on top of the exhaust manifold and take the one that comes from the lower rad hose ( closest head) and place a water hose to it and turn it on about 1/2 way and it will flush it out and let the other end run into a bucket. This will really help the heater because you are back flushing the core and getting all the crud out that builds up on the inlet side and blocks flow, also you get out more of the old coolant. Just remember the cooling system is only designed for a little over 16psi so don't get to carried away you just want a good solid stream coming out of it. It really helped mine. Not a bad idea to pull and flush radiator to. Its not that hard. 2 bolts on each side of the fan shroud, 2 clips on top, slide it back over the fan and let it stay on engine (that way you don't have to pull the fan and over flow and washer fluid tanks do not have to be removed) disconnect the 2 hoses, 1 bolt on each side of the radiator and the 4 studs that hold your secondary batt + cable to the top. and it just slides straight up. Its about a 30-45min job in and out. Its worth the work.