Engine coolant

[Deserion]

Zerex G-05 also works well (gold/yellow). It's Mercedes-Benz approved, and that's perfectly acceptable to me.

[newBgeek]

I just finished tackling this project myself on my 2001 Boxster S. I tried following the guides from Pedro's site and 2001 projects, but it was too awkward trying to access the clamps from the top or through the firewall, and it didn't seem like a good idea to fight with the firewall plate since it's made of plastic and can easily crack. Looks like the guy from 101 projects cracked one of his nipples doing his.

So I took a look underneath and saw that the hoses are clearly visible as in this photo.


I took this picture with the aluminum cover plate on, but you can't actually reach up unless you remove the cover plate and the braces which sandwich it, but you can zip them off pretty quickly if you have an impact since they all use the same size nuts and bolts.

Use a good work light that you can point up, a creeper with a headrest, and with your remote clamp tool, it's a fairly straightforward job. The overflow hose is a gift. The 2 above are easily reachable. The oil fill clamp I had to snake the clamp tool over the wiring harness. The main hose that attaches directly to the reservoir I could not reach due to the brake line and the other 3 nipples, so I opted to remove that hose from the other end which was easily accessible. A bit tough to remove though. Would have been handy to have a 90 degree pick, but I managed with just pliers with a 90 degree tip.

I recently did a coolant flush on my son's BMW and the instructions were to slowing fill the reservoir tank with the ignition in the on position. After I got one tank full of coolant in the boxster, I turned the ignition to the on position without starting the car and surprise, it worked the same way as the BMW. It started sucking in the coolant and I was able to pour all of the coolant back in without starting the engine. I re-used my coolant since it was only 1 year old. I wonder what it is that is sucking in the coolant?

[Hummer-addict]

Make sire you buy a OEM tank and use a new cap ending in 04...I got to do the job twice cause my aftermarket tank pushed antifreeze out of the overflow. I removed the engine cover the second time to reach the clamps...way easier then reaching from bottom with clamp tool.

[newBgeek]

Originally Posted by Hummer-addict

Make sire you buy a OEM tank and use a new cap ending in 04...I got to do the job twice cause my aftermarket tank pushed antifreeze out of the overflow. I removed the engine cover the second time to reach the clamps...way easier then reaching from bottom with clamp tool.

I tried it both ways and found it way easier from the bottom because you can clearly see what you are doing as my photo shows. The guy from 101 projects made it seem like it was impossible to even look at the hoses without removing the transmission. Not true. You can easily view and reach the hoses at the same time, at least on my Boxster S.