Thread: which radiator?

Originally Posted by Eevo

what do you mean?
original rad is d2.

I mean,,, how big is the rad in the car the LS came out of--

A slight tangent to Eevo's questions.

It's always advantageous to work on some other poor unfortunates vehicle first, before your own. I helped AdrianS remove his transmission coolant lines.

Adrian wasn't sure if he had lost all his transmission oil from a ruptured cooler or from a failed hose.

Original intention was to take out the engine radiator and attached transmission cooler for a clear view - four hoses had to be disconnected.

It took over 3 hours on just the connections, to get three of the 4 'garden hose' type fittings off. The issue was the amount of dirt that gets into the collar that releases the 4 tangs that bite into the aluminium tank connection. The tangs have a very small sweet spot where they will release, and that is at full collar compression. We used about half a can of WD40 trying to blow the dirt out of the collars.

We gave up on the fourth connection after further struggles with it and gave up on any idea of getting both radiators fully out. Thankfully having three off gave us enough free movement to see the transmission radiator had not split. Instead we found one of the rubber hoses had broken cleanly in two - the steel to rubber unions were fine.

Just by contrast, a few days before receiving Adrians call for help I had to disconnect a tractor 'garden hose' type fitting. It too was gunked up, making the collar hard to move. Again the dirt was removed with a can of fluid under pressure. Being a proper industrial fitting, brass collar instead of plastic, with real ball bearings instead of tangs, the unit was apart in 5 minutes in contrast to over an hour per unit on the D2.

I guess what I'm getting at is if I were in a preemptive position to change my radiator, and had the dollars, I would include the other coolers as well and consider all metal units (no plastics) and replace the unions with conventional two spanner jobs, or professional units as on tractors. The tractor line, with the professional union was all of about $90 to replace. Of course doing both sides of the junction would add to the cost.

The tang type used on the D2 might be good for production line assembly, but is woeful in the field.

To add insult, the coolant hoses for Adrain's V8 are no longer readily available. Makes me wonder the state of the lines on my D2.