Flushing The Radiator

While preparing to wire in dual electric fans on a switch, I knew I needed to give the cooling system a clean bill of health.  I mean, what's an evening compared to peace of mind?  (Or is it supposed to be a piece of mind because I may have lost it?)

I slipped by the big box home improvement store, bought two 6-foot garden hoses, two 1-1/4" PVC reducers (to 1/2" female pipe thread), three short  1/2" pipes (2" in length, I think), one PVC ball valve, and two garden hose adapters (one male and one female, both with a female 1/2" pipe thread on the other end).

 I screwed it all together, and had a solid system, ready to flush the radiator.  I cracked the thermostat housing, and... realized a previous engine owner had mixed orange and green antifreeze (I'd filled with water at one point, but never added antifreeze).  Orange and green antifreeze do NOT mix well!

Here's the thermostat.

I think it's pretty safe to say, don't mix orange and green antifreeze.  Any way, it took some time to get all of that cleaned out, including removing the thermostat (so I can flush the engine side, of course - if that's still in there, it won't open, and you won't get any flush).  Then, it was time to flush the system.  I started with the radiator side, and put the ball valve host between the house garden hose connection and the top of the radiator (connected from the engine side), and the other hose at the other end, with the hose in a bucket.

Turn on the house connection, then turn on the ball value, and it pushed water through.  Initially, it came out a thick-ish (it wasn't really thick - it was still very much liquid), but definitely not transparent.

I emptied one bucket, filled the next, and the next one came out a little cleaner.

I switched sides to flush from the other direction (still on the radiator), and ran two more buckets, until I was satisfied with clear water.

I disconnected my lines from the radiator hosts and re-attached them to the engine, then took off the radiator side in order to flush the engine.  Again, I did this from both ends, flushing coolant from both directions.

Again, repeating until I had clear water.

Once I was satisfied that water was clear from both directions, I stopped.

I detached from from the hoses, put a new thermostat (95-degree) with switch and sensor threaded holes, and now I'm ready to run this engine once I get the fuel pump in.