Anyone have any tips on how to drain coolant? I have my manual but its not helping much....

 

front of car, from the bottom, looking up, driver side. there will be small plug with a nipple on it (hehe i said nipple hehe). use a 14mm deep well socket to losen it and it will drain coolant.

 

Yea I removed that plug as well as the overflow cap.
My overflow cap recently exploded (yes, exploded) as I was driving the other day and it lost a lot of coolant. So when I drained it not very much came out, probably no more than 3QT's tops. I actually went to the local Volvo dealer and bought some coolant and it actually wasn't all that expensive (only $30) for a gallon of concentrated fluid.
Im going to post a picture of my old overflow cap soon, its literally in 3 pieces

 

i know when i did a drain on mine i got maybe 6qt's outta the thing and that was with removing the radiator hoses. i know when i removed the bottom hose from the radiator i got about a qt alone right there... so you might want to try that.

if ur cap exploded it you were prolly over filled and or you have some back pressure that you shouldn't have.

 

the whole cap cracked and then fell apart. I checked the fluids regularly and they were fine. Im pretty sure it was pre-mature failure on the cap's behalf

 

i agree, that cap was out to get you!