The earlier 1.4 K Series have a different hose arrangement to the latter cars. Mine has the plastic inlet manifold. According to the w'k s'p manual there should be a drain tap on the left hand bottom end of the rad, as you face the engine, no such luck on mine!
There is no drain point on the block either.
I did the job with the car parked on the drive, so with only limited access to underneath. The old coolant looked like long life stuff of some variety [ it was red] and these cars should run on IAT or Inorganic Acid Technology.
This isn't a simple hours job for the afternoon in the expectation of using the car that evening
There is no way of doing this job while leaving the radiator in situ, due to a lack of a drain tap.
I took the rad out and all the brackets holding the air cleaner housing and rubber induction tract out. Still managed to spill a fair amount of coolant over the fan motor, but that was unavoidable with out removing the fan assay from the rad first and I chose not to risk chewing up the 6mm screw heads buried at the bottom of the rad.
On inspection my front subframe was pretty rusty, probably due to a few[?] coolant flushes washing over it in the past. I took the opportunity to carry out some rust removal, preservation and paint as these front subframes are NLA.
As suggested I flushed the water inlet to the head, the rad and removed the heater bypass hose that runs to the top of the cyl' head [ just about the only convenient hose on the whole system] to flush the heater assy'.
I had been warned at several previous meets regarding the perils of leaving trapped air in the thermostat pipe running around the engine from the bottom hose. This means the thermostat never opens, because the water doesn't reach it.
I initially refilled using a 55/50 ratio of Millers blue antifreeze to BS6580 [1992] to filtered drinking water. I added a quantity of Redline Water 'wetter' additive. This allows for the hose water still in the block.
I made an initial fill via the expansion bottle with the engine off. I then turned the engine over on the starter with the bleed screw right out taking great care not to drop it till fluid bubbled out. The system had taken approx' 2.8 litres at this point. I then took her for a run following 1234Dists advice for about three miles. On cooling I got a further approx' 1 litre in. It was then simply a matter of driving the car with the heater on full blast and plenty of rev's and the water pump does the rest. When all the air has been driven out of the system, then squeezing the top hose pushes coolant back into the expansion bottle!
