Hi,

I wanted to flush out the dex-cool in my 98 chevy s-10 (4.3L v6), and wasnt exactly successful. I know the people here are some of the most dedicated DIYers, and Ive learned a lot from everyone here, so I hope you might lend some help for a non-mb car.
I wanted to flush out the coolant on my truck. I read about how to do it from numerous places online, so decided to start. I have a petcock on the bottom of my radiator, and didnt want to have to remove any hoses. I did the following:

-drain radiator
-fill radiator, repeat.
-fill again, run truck until fully hot, with heat on full
-drain, repeat
-make input into radiator = flow out petcock, ran truck to full temp with heat on.
-drain radiator
-refill w/ antifreeze

The problem I encountered awas that the system was supposed to be 12 qts, however, I only got ~ 1 gallon out of the radiator. after Id do the flush, Id let itdrain, and that would be clear, but after a bit often some more of the old orange antifreeze woudl then come out, as if it never really flushed when I added the pure water.

The problem really becomes that I dont know how well it flushed, and so I dont know what amount of water and what amount of old 50/50 coolant remained in the block/heater core, as there must be approximately 2 gallons capacity between those two. In the end I added only antifreeze into my radiator, which took about a gallon, then a 50/50 mix into the recovery bottle so it was at the correct levels. I figured the best and worse case scenarios were as follows:
1) no flush of block heater occurred... therefore ~2 gallons of 50/50 old mixture in there, plus my ~1 gallon of antifreeze => 66.6% antifreeze ratio.
2) full flush of system... all old 50/50 mixture was flushed out, 2 gals
water and ~1 gal of antifreeze => 33% antifreeze in sytstem.

I dont really know what amount I have, and dont know if the coolant bottle is a valid place to test after only driving my truck for about 200 miles and 2 days. I cant get a big enough sample out fo the radiator itself, because there is some large metal piece at the opening, so I cant stick the hydrometer tube in deep enough. Any ideas how long itt akes for sufficiant mixing in the recovery bottle?

SInce I dont know how much coolant was in the block/heater, Im in kind of a pickle. Maybe I should have removed the heater hose and pshed water through, but to be quite honest, I was worried about doing that. Also, judging from refilling what I could to get it up to full capacity, even if you got the whole block and heater flushed and so filled with pure water, you cant get enough pure antifreeze into the radiator(which is abot 1/3 the total system capacity) to get the system to be 50/50 ratio, youre at more like a 33%. Whats the solution to this, run at 33% for a few days, drain some out and refill with more pure antifreeze to get it to 50/50?

Id like any advice on what I should do for this situation. I know there is a gallon of good new antifreeze, but I dont know the pH of the system bnefore, which is the major factor on parts longevity. SInce the actual antifreeze to water ratio will be between 33-66% I guess Im safe, but I dont really know. Id liek to avoid taking it to the dealer to do, and Im not too sure about fixing it myself, but any info/instructions would be most appreciated. By the way, the bottom of my truck has skid plates all along it, so I cant really get to the block I dont think, the radiator petcock is the way to drain, plus Id be worried to mess around with the drains on the block anyway.

On one more quick question in this long-winded post, I would like to know about the valkidity of what a lot of online sites say is how to flush a radiator. They say that you:
-drain
-fill with water
-drain. repeat
-fill with a 50/50 ratio

Some clain that you should run the vehicle with the pure water in it, others dont say to. However, if most cars are anything like my truck, that is only really flushing the radiator, which is at best 1/3 of the system capacity. Even if you flush the radiator once every year, it would take approximately 6 years(because of the mixing of old and new) to get all of the original mixture out if only doing a radiator flush. How does this work, are these sites telling me bad info, or am I just really not getting this...
Thanks very much for your help.

JMH