Hi Laird Scooby - I followed your instructions to the letter. Flushed the system initially with Prestone Coolant Flush, followed by a drive, then anything up to an hour of running a hosepipe through the system. I then fitted a new Volvo OEM thermostat as directed and poured around 4 litres of new blue coolant into the coolant expansion bottle to the LHS of the engine. At that point, the coolant expansion bottle was almost full - over the max mark. I pumped the lower radiator hose which produced some air bubbles, but didn't reduce the coolant level in the bottle.
I took the car for a drive and got it up to operating temperature (maybe 10 mins). The temperature needle rose to a midway point - so the new thermostat is working here. However, the air coming out of the vents continues to be cold (cool-ish - certainly not hot) with the heater setting turned to max.
Questions - I appreciate that no amount of draining/flushing will remove all the residual coolant or water lurking in the radiator or engine block, but surely 5-6 litres shouldn't be lurking there?
Also - do I need to give the car a considerably longer run to get hot air to come out of the vents? I have an idea that the concentrated coolant in the the system won't assist warm air coming out - that's the job of the water you top it up with.
The car is currently parked with the front end on ramps - maybe coolant is going to drain backwards from the radiator to the block and reduce the level in the bottle?
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