When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

Well, that’s too long.

While Kevin and I were working on Phil’s car, he told me about his car overheating. He pulled the radiator and looked at it and it was a mess. His was mostly plugged up where the air was being drawn through the radiator by the fan. Once cleaned up, it cooled the motor just fine. You could see a circular pattern of dirt on Phil’s radiator.

I’m in the process of getting my car ready for a Texas summer. This involves changing the one year old coolant and I’ve added a good radiator cleaning to the chore. Like last year, I’m using 50/50 Extended Life (5 year/150K miles) Prestone Antifreeze/coolant and distilled water. The important non-ingredients in the coolant is its lack of silicate and phosphate. I don’t need sand in my coolant, thank you very much.

Then I broke my radiator! Just before I removed the radiator, I loosened the hose clamp on the overflow tubing. I gave the hose a good twisting pull and ripped the PLASTIC nipple right off of the PLASTIC tank. Oh, you should have seen the light show of sparks flashing through the all metal garage as I loudly chanted all of the USMC Sergeant magic words I remember.

I highly suggest that you remove the OTHER end of the hose – the end that connects to the overflow tank. Then remove the radiator. <sigh>

Needing the car for our Monday commute, I found a local radiator shop that had an aftermarket replacement. $245 and one hour later, I have it in the back of the truck and am about to install it. In theory, the replacement radiator is got a forever warranty against leaks, or until the radiator guy I bought it from dies, whichever occurs first. I wished him a long life.

I hope I don’t regret not waiting for Torrie to ship me an OEM replacement.

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

Jerry, do any of your projects go off without a hitch? ;-)

At least they provide us with some mighty fine entertainment.

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

(LOL) Glad to see you're still able to utilize some of your former Marine Corps "training". Nowadays I see a lot of civilians using those terms too, both liberals and conseratives (LOL).


** Bill **
1995 LSC-R'ed w/Recaro's and Cobra R's
Veteran of Carlisle 2000/01/02
[a href=//cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=258112]For Pic's and Mods click here[/a]

...Without cussing, a drill Sergeant could never complete a sentence...

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

Just lucky I guess.

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

Yeah, USMC training does come in handy. Auto parts come out easier, although most are broken.

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

It was 92 degrees when I took the new radiator out for a test drive. Although the final tests are not in, but it looks like the clean surface has improved the temperature by at least one letter.

I’ll post pictures of the old radiator and how dirty it was as soon as I upload the pics to Virgel’s website.

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

If I tore up the stock radiator, I would have replaced it with a grifffin like i have in the pearl car. IT is a generic ford unit, that you have to weld some brackets onto to make it stay stationary and hook the fan to it. Might be a bit of trouble, but it is about 3 times thicker than that mark VIII joke for a radiator, and cools like a beast.

Jerry, I hope the radiator you have performs well. Was it any different than the stock unit?

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

If anyone is curious, and is looking into upgrading, I believe i paid 195 shipped for the griffin I bought from summit.

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

I was pulling the radiator out of my Suburban the other day and tore the radiator up pulling the hose off. Didn't really matter, because the radiator was trash anyways. I'll put radiator cleaning on the laundry list for the Mark VIII. It's going in for a makeover sometime this week. I don't have the money to get it out right now, but my dad always told me that it didn't cost money to put something IN the shop, only to get it OUT.

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

The new radiator looked exactly the same as the old one. Except cleaner.

I was talking to the radiator repair guy and asked him if anybody made an all-metal radiator for these cars and he said no. "They" quit making all medal radiators period -- even the big rig diesels get plastic radiators. That really bums them out as their radiators, which can’t be rebuilt to last more than 5 years, if that, cost over 900 bucks!

The radiator in Leroy is all metal, been rebuilt once and weighs enough to make a shade tree mechanic look around for some help pulling it out of the truck, let me tell ya.

By the way, our radiators LIST for $350. Torrie can get you one for 220 or so, plus shipping. I needed to get the car up by today, so I paid $245 for an aftermarket duplicate, from a local guy.

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

Damn Jerry I could have got you the same one I have for $105. I've been running it now for about a year and a half with no problem. Next time you need something call me first man, I have a few connections around here.

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

i could swear i seen aftermarket radiator for sell on the lms site for 500$.or was i seeing things because i dont see them on the site anymore

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

I will!!!

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

I'm game. What can I get for $ 105.00 If you would prefer, PM me. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

'93 MonsterMark Project Car
Bryan

RE: When Was the Last Time You Cleaned Your Radiator?

http://radiators.com/ $149.00 + overnite shipping $9.00 to maryland

Pony you said you had to weld brackets onto the griffin radiator did you cut the brackets off your old radiator or just make up your own???