New Thermostat and Coolant Capacity

[EinGutesBier]

After having some trouble with fluctuating temperature in the freezing North Dakota winter, I've decided to change the coolant in my '88 Cressida. It's probably not a good sign that the coolant in the reservoir was partially frozen.

Anyway, the plan is to drain the radiator, but I'm not sure about the right quantity of coolant to replace it with (no owner's manual and no luck finding the info online). Is there anything I need to keep in mind while changing the thermostat besides making sure I install it the right way?

[toyomoho]

The AutoZone website has a good repair section on this car, see link below:

http://www.autozone.com/addVehicleId...leSelected.htm

A complete coolant drain and refill including heater is about 9 quarts. Llook at the back of the antifreeze container to determine how much antifreeze is needed for you area temps. Suggest if not premixed antifreeze to use distilled water.

There is a drain plug on the side of the block, the AutoZone site has a drawing of this.

[kamesama980]

the block drain plug is fairly inaccessible without removing the exhaust so just drain it from the petcock on the radiator (or pull the lower hose off for a faster messier job.

a MUCH better resource would be the TSRM at http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TSRM/MK2/. almost everything carries over to the cressida except the wire coloring and oil sump (and obviously body stuff). Ebay has the bgb (big green book (toyota factory repair manual)) which is the best thing you can invest in if you're planning on fixing things yourself.

full capacity is 8.5 qts but you won't get it all out even if you could get to the drain plug in the block. I'd agree with what toymoho said about the mixture... premix or distilled water and I'd go with a wider ratio than 50/50 for better protection. (one jug of premix, one of pure. add the whole premix and as much of the pure as you can and you'll get a little less than 75/25... IIRC 70/30 offers the widest protection (-60f/+240f or therabouts) so there ya go for those cold nights. here's a chart: http://www.peakantifreeze.com/images...tion_chart.jpg

[EinGutesBier]

Thanks for the great info, Kamesama! Do you think it would be a bad idea to flush the radiator since my car has almost 200k miles and I'm unsure of how the radiator has been serviced? Some people have said that if you do a radiator flush on a car that has not been serviced properly/enough can make the radiator worse because of loosened debris.