Frank S.

I drained the anti freeze from the radiator and flushed it with water. When I tried to tighten the petcock to refill with new anti freeze it just kept turning. It will not close, the petcock just turns and won't catch the threads.

Anyone have this problem and if so how was it fixed. How do you remove the drain petcock from the radiator. I dont want to do any more damage and have to replace the radiator. I'm going to the dealer on monday to see if I can get a replacement part.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. The truck is an 03 3500. Thanks

Frank (Medway Ohio)

GOT BOOST?

Frank, push in real hard and eventually the threads will catch. Jay

Old Smoky

It was probably unscrewed too far and the other half is in the bottom of the radiator. Car Quest has the exact part you need. I think it's in the Help! section.

Mike

soulezoo

^^^ What he said x2. This happened to me too without knowing better. It took a while of pressing a lot harder than you think would be necessary to do this, but eventually it caught and tightened. My thought is that there is an O-ring that has to be compressed and not much room to catch a thread.

Frank S.

I want to thank all who responded to my problem. I did just what some have suggested---"push real hard and the threads started to catch" Everything is fine now.

I didn't respond sooner due to computer problems. Thanks again

Frank Medway Ohio

rjm022

had the same problem a couple of weeks ago when i changed my coolant. at first, i thought i broke it! did a search on this site and was back up and running in no time!

TexasCTD

I had the same problem with mine too. It finally worked, but it makes me wonder if I should buy a spare petcock for next time. I drain and refill my coolant (no flush) every 20k miles with a host of other maintenance.

soulezoo

Why would you drain and flush every 20K? The original HOAT stuff in there was good for 100k+...

TexasCTD

I don't trust it to protect as well as it SHOULD for 100k miles. I am not saying that it won't, but I don't want to risk it. And it only costs about $35 or so to buy the Zerez G-05 and distilled water.

There are some guys in the N. Texas DTR club that started draining/refilling once a year (mainly 2nd gen guys). So I just picked up on it too, and started doing it with my self-imposed 20k mile maintenance interval.

When I drain and refill it doesn't get all of the product out. But by doing it every 20k miles it keeps almost new coolant in the system all the time. I have done it twice so far because mine had not been touched until about 60k miles. So that said, I might consider extending this to every 40k instead of every 20k.

Same principle with my trans fluid....I drain it, change the filter and refill it every 20k also. So far so good.

madhat

Cause he's like me... it makes you feel better.

jagnth

I had to replace the O-Ring on mine. Just used small vice grip pliers and 'popped' it out. (after I had backed it up the 1/4 turn and pulled while turning a bit more)
My O-Ring was creased so was leaking. Other threads have recommended some waterproof grease to minimize sticky O-Ring on next use. (its also probably much easier to put back in).
I had forgot to buy the grease when I got the O-Ring and had some small trouble getting it back in. With a new ring I couldn't get it to 'bite' the threads (for lack of a better words since it isn't really 'threaded') so I tapped with a small hammer till it 'popped' in place. No more leak!!