Try twisting it as close to the radiator as you can. It should break loose, if the clamp is loose. That'* easier than trying to pull it off. Once it is loose, it should easily pull right off. If it is that tight, that twisting won't work, you might have to cut it off, and replace the hose. It might need a new hose anyway if it'* got alot of miles on it.

Great advice, Green. I think at this point, that'* exactly what I'd do. The lower radiator hose is cheap, and great insurance. Cut and replace.

i finally got the petcock out, i had basicly given up, i have no way to get the radiator hose off, i had a long enough screw drive but i just couldnt get the leverage, and i coundt get enough room to effective try to twis tit off, i was afraid of using excessive force on the petcock cuz it was plastic, but i had given up and i was angry so i got a pair of pliers and twisted it and it just came off smoothly, so through this whole process the only damage i did was spill my oil, which isnt surprising, i liek to figure things out for myself and it usually ends up in me messing up sometihng on the first try and getting it right the second try

yeah, you'll find that if you put pliers close to the radiator, there'* not too much worry about breaking the drain plug. if you do, then you already had more problems than you know... and it'* pretty easy to do - much easier than removing the lower radiator hose - i mean, that'* just a pain (as you found out)...

sometimes things really work out the way that the engineers wanted them too... musn't overlook them

matt

Good job NERV. I know the engineers meant to use the petcock and it shouldn't break off, but I'm a little paranoid of plastic parts breaking off, and I know the coolant has never been changed for nine years on mine. I've had other plastic parts break on mine before, and I didn't want to take the chance, and have to replace the radiator or other pieces. In my case, the radiator hose came off pretty easy. Plastic tends to get brittle if it'* not exercised for a long time.

Since it was nine years, I ran some Prestone radiator flush through, but it came out surprisingly clean, with a little blackish sediment, but nothing really worrisome. There was no rust that I could detect.

95guy has the best idea so far. It may sound radical, but it works quite well. Not messy eithor.

i myself just did this a few days ago - the coolant in my 96 had never been touched, so it was an experience. i found the biggest problem to be that we couldn't actually see the plug. so the digital camera came to the rescue! not sure if you bonnie folks have the same sheilding we lesabre folks do underneath, but once I took off the large shield, i could easily feel what i was getting at. a pair of pliers unscrewed it pretty quickly, but we still didn't have coolant flow... which was strange. until we realized that you have to (on my model anyway) actually pull the plug outwards before it'll drain.

worked like a charm, drained like a charm