I'm Flushed

Not knowing the status of the antifreeze in the 280z, I decided to flush the cooling system.  The first step?  Drain the radiator!  I used a rag to keep the coolant from spraying everywhere when pulling the plug.

I then used a 5 gallon bucket placed atop my transmission jack to capture the coolant draining from the radiator.

After draining the radiator, it was time for the engine block.  The block plug is located on the passenger side of the engine towards the rear.  I used nifty trick to keep the rush of water from going all over the garage floor: make a super-fun happy slide to direct the water into the bucket (bonus points if you get the reference).  In this case I used a foam sleeping pad from our camping gear.

After the coolant had been drained I filled the system with distilled water and a bottle of Prestone Super Coolant Flush I had sitting on my shelf.  I then sealed the system and ran the car in the garage for 15 minutes.  After the engine cooled, I drained the system again using the above procedure.  I then filled the system with distilled water only to get the flush out of the block.  Again, I ran the car for 15 minutes.  

While the car was cooling from this last run, I pulled the coolant reservoir from the car.  While cleaning out the reservoir, I noticed that there was a lot of paint overspray on the bottle that looked less than pleasing.

I used some denatured alcohol and a whole lot of elbow grease to remove the paint.

I finally filled the system with 50/50 coolant and ran the car for another 15 minutes.  An inspection of the drain bucket revealed more rust and scale from the system than I would have liked to see; I may do this again in a few months and see if more comes out.