hey guys, had the car at mechanic today for a timing belt change (13,000k early) he looked at my leaking distributor and found out the oil isn't coming from the o-ring and couldn't be sure where it was from so cleaning it all up and put it back together, anyway he noticed that my Thermostat seal was leaking (obviously from flushing the system as it's a brand new leak), I bought a thermostat kit just wondering how to change it without loosing too much of the brand new coolant from the engine? possible? maybe just collect it from the radiator in a clean container and pour it back in through some sort of filter?

AFAIK Pretty much. Make sure you pour it into a super clean drain pan and use a fluid filter. SCA sell them now for a few dollars a pack.

thanks. What a pain

My TR has a tap on the bottom of the radiator, i parked it with the front wheels where the driveway slopes down and took out 2 coke bottles worth and only had to add a splash after i put them back in. It was a weird colour, red with light shining through it, but if the light was behind you reflecting off the bottle it looked a greeney/brown/grey. Side on one side looked red the other green. Dad got my radiator top tank replaced a while back and said they used bmw coolant?

Well, that was a piss easy job.
Drained the radiator, lost about halt a litre when I pulled out the Thermostat (The seal was buldging and deteriorated, as was the rubber on the thermostat)
Luckily the coolant concentrate was 50/50 so now is about 40/60