Replacing Coolant with AirLift System?

[onewhippedpuppy]

Regardless of bleed method, the key is that the bleeder needs to be the highest point in the system to help evacuate the air.

I don't think the point of this thread is that an Air Lift is the ONLY way to bleed air out of a cooling system. I would just submit that it is the EASIEST way to refill a cooling system. I love the ability to refill a drained system in less than 10 minutes without any concerns about trapped air or bleeding the system. It's also very neat because you can put your desired coolant/water mix into a 5 gallon bucket and just suck it out of there, no worries about funnels, spills, or trying to mix it up in gallon jugs.

[svandamme]

can you in 10 minutes?
What about to the radiators..won't you get pockets there behind thermostats?
I would think at any time that built in bleed valve remains a must after some driving to warm up the engine.

So it's not that big of a time gain.. and not worth investing the money if you don't do this on a weekly basis. which i doubt any DIY porsche mechanic does.

[onewhippedpuppy]

10 minutes tops. You always have to drain the system via drain plug. After that point you close the plug, hook up the Air Lift which will suck out the residual fluid before pulling a vacuum, close the valve to insure the vacuum holds and you don't have any leaks, and then suck in the new fluid until the vacuum is back to ambient. At that point you are done, period, no bleeding or other work.

The manual way typically works fine, I did it for years. But this is faster and easier, and gets the job done right the first time. As I get older and have less free time, that's worth buying a $100 tool. Which I have used a LOT because it's universal, I'll probably be doing my F150 this weekend as it has 75k on the original coolant.