Further to Mur's solution, if you are scraping gaskets and cleaning pistons in place, what I like to do is spin the piston down to the bottom of the bore. I then smear some grease around the circumference of the cylinder about halfway up, then spin the piston to the top. The grease gathers around the piston and makes a "seal" that keeps stuff from palling in between the piston and the cylinder.

mur you're a great guy for posting that.  You should have a PayPal donation button on all your posts since you probably saved me another day's worth of work.

workinprogress and I R&R'd a 998 head in about forty minutes one day before he had to leave on a water polo tournament trip.  We used a drill to lap in the exhaust valves. Super duper hack-style action.

I prefer to drain the coolant down a while before removing the head.

Things to consider:  Remove the studs, chase those threads, clean all guck from below the studs.  Do not overtighten the studs into the block.  Check for sufficient chamfer where the threads begin in the block, though that is more of an MGB issue.

Clean is OK.  I scrape the carbon off of the pistons, polish them with scotchbrite, and spent a bit of time getting that goop out of the ring land area at the side of the piston.  Moving the piston up and down the bore helps to get stuff out.  Shop vac and compressed air, brake clean, are your pals.

The oil hole is tiny, nothing will fall down there.  You would have to try hard to get stuff into the water gallery as well.

Big important thing:  twist the pushrods as you lift them out of the cam followers so they don't pull the followers out:  this is a small bore/S Block issue and not a concern with 1300 blocks, but it sucks to have to remove the tappet covers to sort lifters back into their bores when you are trying to be quick.

 

This is a helpful thread since I'm about to do my first head gasket tonight with the goal of driving to work in the morning.   Interesting that you don't have to empty the whole gallon.  I'll try mur's blowing technique first.

Can't find info anywhere on what to do when I accidentally drop a bolt down a cylinder water or oil passage.  

A guy on one of the Brit forums advocated sanding the head in place if you don't want to take it out and deck it(!).  Must provide a nice little stew of metal shavings for the passages and cylinders.

Actually, maybe all the engine builders are posting up that tip to help business.

Dan, I wasn't suggesting 100% to fill the system; I was suggesting that the amount that could be drained by my method would allow for enough 100% to be added to equal about 50% in the end. I'm well aware that one doesn't run 100% antifreeze. Sorry if my wording was misleading.

Contrary to what geoO suggests about 100%.... from the Prestone website:

A:

I don't have the part number here but I buy rad. bungs from Car Quest. There is a flat spot on the bottom of most rads, drill a 5/8 hole, drop in the bung a little flux and some heat, soldier and you are done. I like to put one in each rad I install. Sort of a plan ahead thing. Steve (CTR)

When I built my rad ,I insalled a petcock. then when we built my motor we took the nut off from water gallery on the back of the motor and ran a hose down past the frame and put a quick disconnect fitting on the end. So when you want to change the fluid you
push on another length on hose with a quick disconnect fitting on it and the water drains into a container. This way I can play with waterwetter / antifreeze levels.

Next time you pull the radiator, any decent rad shop should be able to put a petcock in it.

Me? I just yank off the lower hose and clean up the mess.......

What I did is take a bung that is used to hold an airlock for beer making and fit it onto the end of my air nozzle. Then I blew air into the rad and used a soup can to collect the water coming out of the heater valve.  Life would be so much nicer with the petcock. Thanks for all of the replies. Bruno is beaded down for the winter.

Gene

The capacity of the whole system, if you don't have an expansion tank, is about a gallon. Use a battery squirter or turkey baster and suck as much as you can out of the header, then remove the fitting for the thermostat (the engine end of the upper hose) and suck out as much as you can. If you've gotten the header tank nearly dry, you won't have much of a mess taking the thermostat fitting off.

Far less messy than taking the bottom hose off and draining it all. Then add straight anti-freeze (not pre-mix 50-50) and you should end up with a protective mix.

Remove the heater hose from the heater take off outlet or tap or whatever you have, and place the hose in a bucket or jug and place your left thumb over the tap/outlet.  Take a paper towel, poke a small hole in it, place it over the rad opening with the rad cap off.  Use a finger on your left hand to cover the rad overflow outlet, and take your mouth to the paper towel and blow coolant out of the cooling system.  You can get enough out to remove the engine, change a head gasket, or change the coolant antifreeze ratio this way.  If you have a Stant pressure tester kit, you need not blow into the rad.  Tidy, makes no mess.  Obviously, coolant is poisonous son get none on your lips, and don't do something like that in front of children, etc.

What about pulling something like a heater hose and blowing it out with air? The car is an Inno, so maybe the original radiator was different?

I could be wrong, but I don't believe any of the stock radiators came with a drain aside from the MPI/SPI's and those that had the electric fan/thermostat combo.  But even those didn't have a rain IIRC.

 

I always had to remove the lower radiator hose, make a big mess, and refill the radiator with whatever mix I wanted.

I replaced my radiator a year or so ago. My old rad had the petcock on the lower front (as far as the car is concerned) of the radiator. The replacement (used) radiator does not have the drain in that location.  Temps are getting quite frigid and I need to get the water/water wetter out and get some anti-freeze in there. 

Where else were drains put on stock radiators?

Gene