How to Replace Drain Refill Radiator 2011-17 Toyota Camry

Hi, everyone. Sue here from 1A Auto, and today on 2013 Camry I'm going to show you how to drain and refill your coolant. If you need any parts for your car, click on the link below and head on over to 1aauto.com.

To take the undercarriage shield down, we're going to need a 10 millimeter socket and a body clip tool. This car has had the shield down--somebody replaced. So for the most part, it should be a 10 millimeter socket but this one, someone put in. They're actually standard 13 or half inch sockets, so I am just going to take them down. Switch over to the 10. So you're going to do the same per side. So there's three bolts with the little rubber vent, just directs the air flow. You're going to take those down and then you're going to have one, two, three, four across the front, and then one body clip.

I'm going to do the body clip. Is the R for right side, passenger side. And the L for left side. Once your shields are down, you can see the lower part of your radiator, and you'll see the drain right there. The petcock and it's just a plastic butterfly. Sometimes you can do it by hand, sometimes you can't. I'll just use a pair of small pliers, and I just grab it gently and give a slight twist. Then I'll use my hand. I have my catch bucket ready to go. The radiator almost finished draining, just dripping very little. But the petcock is above the actual lower radiator, so we're going to get coolant out of this still. So I just hand-tighten that. I'm going to just lock it with my pliers. Just an eighth of a turn right there. You saw it. That way, if I don't forget, and I'm reinstalling this radiator, I don't have any leaks.

So now to take the clamp off, just use a pair of pliers and work it up the hose. Make sure you move your bucket over and hope you don't get soaked. Let's see if it will even loosen up. No. I'll do this way by tool. Here she comes.

Now I can put the clamp on. So whenever doing a radiator or any coolant fill system, we sell this. Maybe you've seen one of them before, but we sell it on our website and it's a coolant funnel, a self burper. It works really good. It's been around for a long time. This kit comes with all new modern stuff. I have one of the original ones that came out probably close to 15 years ago. I'm not going to date myself. But it doesn't come with all these cool attachments. So we know we have the European small, so I'm going to use that one. Comes with two of them. You have one that's wider than the other as far as the prongs go, and all these adapters that go with it. And I like how they're color-coded because once you use it enough, you can say oh I know that the purple is for GMs and the black is like for Fords or vice versa and then you've got little imports. Couple of elbows.

Okay so let's see how this works. So the first thing you want to do is, on this radiator, it has a raised neck to it. So you're going to find the one with the shortest fill. That would be that green one. Now I'm going to look at my radiator and I know that could be it or that could be it. So let's try this one first, and you want it to be snug. And I lucked out. Perfect. So now you just take your funnel, push it down in, and take the stopper out. I'm going to put all this stuff aside. It's not used on this car.

And now you take your coolant of choice. I have some aftermarket coolant for Asian engines, all aluminum engines. And it's already premixed. And you just start to fill your car. And it will self burp, doesn't make a mess and I can just keep filling that right up. It'll just drop itself right down there.

When I put the shield back up, I've got the R for right side which would be the passenger side, you can see the cutout of the fender well right here. So I'm going to guide it in so you want the tab from the bumper underneath and you want to put all these little flares up under like that. So I'm going to put one bolt in and hold it. Then I'm going to go over here, and I've got my fender guide here. So that's going to go on top there, then that one. Now this has that rubber piece, you remember? I'm going to get my electric gun with my 10 millimeter socket. I'm going to do the same on the drivers side which is the plastic that says L. So that's going to go overlap up inside, and the one time, one piece I put on. The one bolt I tighten up. Of course. Like that. Up inside the fender flare.

Here we go. So now I can take my rubber piece here. Put that up, and want to make sure I line that up. Okay, up in the front here. Get this one. And get this one that overlaps, so this piece has got to go down underneath it. And then we have a push pin that I'm going to put in right here. And then the last one is a replacement push-pin. So now we're ready to run our vehicle and let the coolant burp in the overflow fill tank that we have. It's a coolant burping tool. So you're going to want to run this with the heat on the max and at vent with our AC off, and you can turn the blower on just a little if you want. We just want to make sure that the hot coolant circulates through the heater core. And that way you get the proper level. So after about 45 minutes, 50 minutes, that should be full temperature for this car.

Just make sure you hear your coolant fans come on because you did replace them. If you didn't replace them, you disconnected them. Either way, the cooling fans coming on is a good indication that the PCM's getting the proper signal from the ECT sensor, that your thermostat's working and the coolants full. So have fun.

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