901-Memphis

I am going to do some work on a friends 1999 Cirrus Lxi with a 2.5 liter v6 and auto trans. He had a leak at the water pump about a year ago and had to have a mechanic replace the water pump and gasket. The cooling system was extremely neglected and the car only has about 60,000 miles on it from lots of short trips.

The cooling system was basically like mud when i looked at it last year when it was leaking. The mechanic said he did a chemical flush on it and after that flush was done and the pump was replaced i looked at the reservoir again and the coolant was still brown. Looking at it again today its getting browner and has stuff floating in it. The mechanic noted that it would need another flush because of how neglected it was so its not surprising.

My plan is to use prestone super radiator flush with distilled water and leave it in for a good highway jaunt and continue flushing with more distilled water before i re-fill with the proper mixture.

Mainly i need to know if these cars are picky on what type of coolant to use and the cooling system capacity as well as the recommended distilled/anti-freeze ratio for a car that experiences northern Kentucky winters. My thoughts would be to use Prestone yellow jug (green stuff) and use a 50/50 ratio of antifreeze/distilled water. I haven't researched what coolant is required but i will if no one knows on these forums; this is my first start.


Just thought i would bounce around my thoughts and see if anyone has any better ideas on products that can help get more gunk out.

Also does anyone know if the drain plug is easy to get to or if i will need to remove anything like a splash guard?