Mileage: 88,493
Since the heater box and heater core were both installed back on the vehicle, I needed to get the other mechanical issues dealt with before I can continue with getting the car back together. The coolant flush and fill was the next step. Dad and I used a Prestone Flush & Fill kit that Dad has had for years. We installed the “T” for the garden hose attachment between the ends of the two non-attached heater hoses. We then followed the instruction provided by Prestone and used some of their Super Radiator Flush and let the water flow and flush until we had straight clean water coming out of the car.
After the flush and fill was done, we removed the original heater hoses and clamps. I evaluated the original clamps and they were in great shape, so I cleaned them up with some carb cleaner. We then got the new heater hoses installed, routed, and clamped back down using the original hose clamps. Now that the coolant system was totally sealed back up, we started to add coolant back in. We generated a few air pockets in the coolant system that took a while to come out, but the system was eventually totally full and brought up to operating temperature. The best part is no coolant leaking on the inside of the car and the heater was blowing hot air!
While doing the flush and fill, we noticed one issue with the coolant system. The coolant overflow tank or reservoir had a crack in it and looks as if it had been repaired once before. This is a typical part to go bad on these cars because of the way it is mounted to the car. When you go to push the cap back on, you put downward pressure onto the reservoir and it puts stress on the mounting bolts which are embedded into the plastic tank. After doing this a few hundred times, the plastic around the bolt cracks and now the reservoir is no good. I have never noticed this before mainly because the location of the cracks were so high on the reservoir, unless the coolant was overfilled or the vehicle was overheating, it would have never leaked out!
I figured I would be able to grab any of the major part suppliers catalogs and just order one up. Well, it turns out the coolant reservoir for the 1980 and 1981 4.9L V8 powered Firebird/Trans Am is unique. All the reservoir’s from the bigger 1976 - 1979 motors will work in my car, but are not correct. After doing some research and searching, one supplier still stocks the correct reservoir I need, Ames Performance Engineering. So, for $59.00 I was able to replace the cracked reservoir with a new, clean looking one!
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