Unable to Pull Vacuum on Cooling System (RESOLVED)

[Intuit]

Bought this...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BW39HJS/
...pissed away half a weekend fooling with the defective Venturi adapter.

Bought an actual vacuum pump and still had issues.
Wouldn't hold pressure or vacuum.

Found the source of the issue...

...That's the coolant overflow drain. Excess coolant that presses its way out of the spring-operated valve in the cap, drains down this slot.

None of the little adapters on the tool account for this.
I have perfectly sized O-Rings but there's no way to press the o-rings into that slot hard enough for them to seal.

The cap, seals on the inner-circumference rather than on the top-surfaces there.

May instead, require an adapter that looks more like this...


Before I go looking, has anyone already found and used such an adapter with their Fiesta?

 

[Alkoran]

That's weird, I used a tool a lot like yours and did not have any problem when changing my rad for the Mountune one.

 

[Intuit]

The silicon/rubber adapters that came with my tool appear to be slightly different from the one in your photo.

They have a lip that prevents them from inserting too deeply or falling into the tank. The cone is simply too small to seal.

 

[Alkoran]

Yeah but if you seal on the biggest part, above the drain, you should be good. At least, that's what I did if I remember correctly. It's been 2 years since I've done it. And I did not check for the drain hole, but I assume it was present. Maybe I pushed the adapter down to the shoulder/drain hole and it sealed that way. I can't help you much, I'm sorry.

 

[Intuit]

Found this at my local AutoZone. Problem is presumably resolved.
https://www.autozone.com/test-scan-...tools-radiator-and-cap-adapter-set/391377_0_0




EDIT 23y05m27d21h02m59s:
I can confirm that this adapter works perfectly. Vacuum and refill process is very quick. In fact, I had to slow the refill down in order to limit the suds from the coolant.

The manual simply has you pull the lower radiator hose (passenger side, underneath) to drain the system. On the scale of 1 ~ 10 difficulty, this is a 3... very easy/quick.

What you get out may be relatively little compared to system capacity... meaning you'll have to exchange the coolant much more frequently.
On a coolant exchange, you'll only get about half out. The system has a multi-stage process for warm-up and full circulation isn't allowed until the final stage.

 

[Intuit]

Attached PDF documents for the drain/refill procedure and description for the operation of the cooling system.

"2016 Ford Fiesta ST - Cooling System Operation Component Description.pdf"
"2016 Ford Fiesta ST - Cooling System Drain Vacuum Refill.pdf"

.

 

[scooter123]

A rather simple cave man solution is to place a small square piece of electrical tape on the projection for the drain on the underside of the reservoir. Yeah it's a bit a pain to have to unlatch the reservoir and fish it out enough to get at that spot and you do have to do this twice because that bit of tape needs to be removed. However it's not that often we need to vacuum fill the cooling system.