Draining fluids from a 1978 Cj5

If you don't know _anything_ about servicing a vehicle you are leaving yourself wide open for making a costly mistake. The Haynes service manual assumes a certain amount of basic experience. The Chrysler factory manuals assume you are a tech. Both will probably look like Greek to you.

The best solution is to ask a mechanically inclined friend over to walk you through the tasks like bleeding the brakes and flushing the cooling system. An oil and filter change is pretty straightforward. If you really want to learn, take a few semesters of auto maintenance classes at your local community college.

OTH, your CJ sounds like a very good vehicle to learn on ;)

John

John Davies TLCA 14732

'96 Lexus LX450 '00 Audi A4 1.8T quattro Spokane WA USA

This is a place where even the Haynes or Chilton manuals would probably be enough. These are all less than one-bananna jobs that take a minimum of tools. The brake bleed/refill takes the right size box end wrench (8 mm or 1/4 inch??) to keep from screwing up the bleed ports but just about everything else can be done with a good sized Cresent wrench, a pair of pliers, and a screwdriver or two.

One item not mentioned in the thread was rubber - you probably want to change all the radiator and heater hoses while you are in there, maybe the fan belt as well. 5 years is about the lifetime for rubber even in daily use and it's cheap insurance.

I would suggest you visit a brake shop to have the braking system flushed. While it is certainly possible to do this yourself, if you have to ask how, you should let somebody else do it, or not follow me when you are done. The braking system is by far the most diffcult to flush, and the most problematic if not flushed jproperly.

The differentials can only be flushed by removing the covers. Not all that difficult really.

The oil in the crankcase is easy.

The transmission will have a drain plug on the bottom and a filler plug about half way to two thirds of the way up the side. Fill the trans until oil comes out of the fill hole. The proper level for the trans oil is when you put your finger in the fill hole and can feel the oil level with the bottom of the hole. The transfer case is done the same way as the transmission. You have to be sure that you don't drain the trans and fill the transfer case, or vise versa. Be sure you drain and fill each of them.

The coolant is drained from the petcock on the bottom of the radiator. If the vehicle has been sitting for several years, you may want to replace all of the hoses, and this will effectively drain the coolant. You can connect your garden hose to the heater hose and run the water until it comes out clean. There are environmental issues associated with flushing the radiator at home, only you can decide about this.

It kills cats, dogs and other animals who are attracted to it as it smells and tastes sweet to them. Please let us decide for you :-)

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

Be sure to also disconnect the hoses running to the heater core and plug those, one at a time into your hose. Watch, and your core will puke out some serious nasties, and you'll have great heat output this winter :) Nick

It's nasty stuff. I remember the scandal when I was a teenager when some French wine producers put it in some low grade wine to make it taste sweeter.

Thanks for all the GREAT advice. I think I'm going to give this a shot myself, why own a great jeep like a CJ5 otherwise. I'll get back to you all with my results and hospital bill detail.

Harry

Sorry for the top post, but was the wine thing for real or was it just on the Simpsons??

Regards,

DAve

Dave Milne wrote:

It was Austrian growers in 1985 (not French ones - my mistake). The additive was diethylene glycol, deliberately added in the final mixture as the wine merchant figured that they would scan for sugar and saccharine, but not glycol. Fairly callous as 110 ml is usually enough to kill you.

It was for real.

They pulled a mess from the shelves. It has happened more than once too.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

DaveW wrote:

I didn't mean to suggest you just let coolant drain and lay on the ground for the animals to lap up. I assumed you live in a residential neighborhood with gutters and such, and that you would flush the few quarts of coolant with several gallons of water. If I was going to drain my coolant, I would capture it, or as much as I could, then thoroughly wash the area so the mixture was on a scale of just a few ppm of the water.