Quoting Peter Carmichael: I had another go this afternoon. First of all, I emptied the whole system again. I then jacked the font of the car up and re-filled from the radiator and expansion tank
You have written this short description of what you have done, which may not do justice to all the connivances you have applied... but I will take you literally.
It should be clear that the radiator and expansion tank are both on the radiator side of the closed thermostat. The result is that filling from these points leaves the potential for the cylinder head and block to have plentiful quantities of air trapped. It is a much more successful approach to attempt to fill the block and head with the car level. You do this by detaching the top radiator hose from the radiator and loosening it at the water rail - you can then angle it up into a vertical position and fill with coolant. Filling like this gives you the likelihood only of a small amount of trapped air at the heater.
Next, jack up the front and reattach the hose. Fill from the expansion tank with the radiator bleed valve open. When the expansion tank is good and full grasp the lower rad hose and flex it *A LOT*. Angle it until it is horizontal to get air to escape up to the expansion tank. There will be big glugs of coolant replacing air pockets. Keep topping up the expansion tank and when you think you have got all the air out, flex the hose some more. Don't neglect to flex the lower horizontal bit where it attaches to the radiator.
Having done this, the only air in the system is still by the heater. If you have the expansion tank high enough, loosen a heater hose and vent the air there. Do everything up and it is job done.
The system definitely takes ~5 litres (~10 pints).
Thought I would quote the post above again to bump this thread back to the top. This was very helpful earlier today in filling a troublesome K-series coolant system...thanks Peter .
