Bongo Fury

i can vouch for that, had my hoses changed ,and the hose pipe method was used, never any probs with air trapped, only topped up once the following day and it been ok ever since.

Cheers dave, i hope this doesn't turn into a "which method is best" discussion, i had doubts over the official "mazda" method some years back, so adopted my own,which happened to work in my case,the fundamental principle being that little air was introduced at the outset,negating a complicated ritual of bleeding.

The method i employed wasn't introduced as a factsheet at my request,somebody asked how i bled mine,i replied, it turned into a factsheet....

Works for me, and many others it would seem.

Horses for courses....

The fact sheet you produced is very useful. Has helped me loads.

Using this method, should I expect the coolant to drain ftom the bleeder pipe after only 3 litres.

Cheers

I'm not knocking your system Ste - but I'd still use the factory system if I even thought there was an airlock anywhere.

I've only ever used the factory system cos it will work and cos I've replaced a hose or 2. I'm guessing the airlocks originate in the rear heater matrix if the level goes down because of a leak.

Its ok to top a system up the next day or day after if you're familiar with doing it. The majority of owners don't want to know about it - they just want a hassle free life

HA106420 wrote:
Using this method, should I expect the coolant to drain ftom the bleeder pipe after only 3 litres.

If you add neat coolant into the header, in conjunction with the warm water flowing from the hosepipe,you'd be suprised how quickly the coolant circulates,the neat coolant added at the beginning is to offer a "boost" to the coolant strength, and to give an indication on the flow rate,when this occurs,switch off the hosepipe,and get your assistant ready with the pre-mixed coolant,the trick is to keep the water level hovering around the "max" mark,be ready to bung the bleed hose as you are getting to the end of the pre-mixed coolant supply.... It's actually much easier in practice than it sounds...

dandywarhol wrote: I'm guessing the airlocks originate in the rear heater matrix if the level goes down because of a leak.

I'm convinced they are alan, that's where some of my thinking originated from with regards to having a warm flow of water running through the engine for quite a while before the coolant is introduced, and the bung closed... With BOTH heaters set to hot,i'm hoping that the long run of water,with a then uninterrupted addition of coolant would promote any trapped air to clear from the rear matrix,this is of course assuming the thermostat is open,otherwise, all bets are off... It does seem to work though...

The heater matrices are always on - coolant flows through them all the time, there's no on/off switch. The vehicle temperature is controlled by adding cold AIR to the hot air produced by the matrix.

There's no need to turn the heaters or a/c on - in fact the a/c must be turned OFF otherwise the fans will cool the radiator and the stat will take yonks to open.