I did it next to my kitched sink. I filled it with distilled water and then turned on the main switch so the coolant pump ran for a minute or so to flush everything out of the lines. Then turn it off, removed power and just tilted the compressor sideways over the sink to drain the coolant reservoir. I then filled the tank with a 50/50 pre-mix of Dexcool and turned it back on so the pump ran. After the lines and radiator was full, I added a little more Dexcool to top off the reservoir.
FLgunner
The first time I ran distilled water in it I had to take the compressor and tilt, turn, rotate, gyrate, etc several times to finally get it to prime. After that I screwed up because instead of tilting the reservoir to the side and pouring it out I tried draining all of the water by rotating, tilting, etc and then I had to re-prime it all over again. After the 5th time I came to realize I didn't need to drain it completely and I just tilted it to the side and drained it then refilled it. I was able to do this 5 more times fairly quickly without having to re-prime the pump. It finally was free of specks and sediment.
Initially my coolant reservoir looked like it had rusty water in it and after flushing it several times I saw what looked like slime and algae in the system. There were rusty looking specks everywhere inside the cooling system and one of the hoses coming from the top of the piston cooling cylinder to the radiator had orange rusty stains in it. The clamp on the electric water pump was rusted from what looks like when they drained the water when testing the unit it somehow spilled into the case:
There must have been a lot of sediment in the water as there were what looked like hard water stains on the bottom and sides of the case. It was a little disappointing to see, but I guess it should be expected seeing where it was assembled.
I ended up using Zerex 50/50 coolant per the blog (although the blogger used a 70/30 mix). I filled the system several times with Zerex and drained it to try and get the distilled water out of the system and get a better concentration/ratio of 50/50 coolant mix and not a more watered down ratio because of the distilled water I previously used to flush the gunk out.
Some things I learned:
1. You definitely want to take the orange case cover off so that you can scope out the hoses as well as see where there are air bubbles in the hoses and radiator.
2. Be sure to tilt, angle, rotate the compressor in just about every direction (while the compressor is running) to get the air out of the radiator (be sure you have the coolant cap on and tight).
3. Squeeze the braided coolant hose tightly and let the water pump build pressure to bleed out the bubbles and air pockets (this really helped me finally get the system primed).
I have the system set up and ready to start filling and testing. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.
-PJ