Getting to the radiator drain tap on Rover 214 K16 ??

Any chance it's had a reconditioned rad in it at any time, i.e one from a radiator re-coreing place, not a genuine ford one which costs 3 times as much, could be a slim chance a header/side tank needed replacing, and it got one without a drain bung?

I've only had vans, and an air-cooled car.. (bugger to change the antifreeze on that.. it never comes out no matter how many bolts you remove on the cooling system :)

On all my vans, the drain plug is a small plastic bolt, with a flat griping point on it.. imagine a refersed slot head screw.. the slot part sticks out instead of in, they are always on the lowest point of the rad, my last van this was on the bottom hose join point, my Iveco van the rad has the inlet and outlet on the left hand side, and the bottom hose is located half way up the rad!! so on the oposite side at the bottom of the tank on that side is the drain plug.

It could well be hidden under road grime/mud/splattered hedgehogs etc :)but it should be on the lowest point on the rad.. if its there at all.

Failing finding the plug, pop the bottom hose off the rad and drain it like that.. much faster than having the water dribble out of a 10mm hole.

This is one of those cases where the Haynes manual describes mythical parts and procedures! Actually, to be fair, early models did have a drain plug and a filler neck but they disappeared around the '92/'93 models, Haynes just didn't update the manual accordingly.

To drain the system ensure the heater is set to maximum and remove the expansion tank cap. Release the bottom hose from the radiator and allow the coolant to drain, it may help to release the bleed screw at this point. Once drained, reconnect the bottom hose and *slowly* refill via the expansion tank until coolant can be seen emerging in a steady flow from the bleed screw. Refit bleed screw and continue to refill until up to the level on the expansion tank. Continue forth as per Mr. Haynes.

HTH

Meza let forth with a mighty belch and uttered :

Recon rad?, if its any consolation, my 414 didn't have either a recon rad

-or- a drain plug, and yes, the bottom hose is the way to go.

Still awkward to reach though.

Gazz... thanks for the tips. I checked on a N reg 416 too, and it has exactly the same rad, but there is so much space under the bonnet - it was easy to check for the plug. My 214 is a different story though, cramped as a... well there's not a lot of room to get to the pipes ;)

ta Michael too :)