Repairing a plastic / aluminum radiator.
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Category: Other Topics
Forum Name: Shops, Barns, Varmints, and Trucks
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URL: https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=206757
Printed Date: 18 May 2025 at 5:26am
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Topic: Repairing a plastic / aluminum radiator.
Posted By: AC7060IL
Subject: Repairing a plastic / aluminum radiator.
Date Posted: 17 May 2025 at 2:35pm
Anyone else on forum do this before?
I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this repair was to complete. 2 hours?
It began with my 5k engine oil change interval. When I stepped out of vehicle to fetch ramps to assist/elevate front of vehicle for oil change, I smelled coolant. I noticed a small drip coming from upper radiator tank??? What’s going on? That’s new.
Anyway, just finished repairing our 2000 330k vehicle’s fatigue hairline crack in it’s upper plastic tank that’s connected to an aluminum radiator core. Crack was in a flat area to the side of its hose fitting, equally spaced between its lower lip & top of tank.
Drained / lowered radiator of coolant. Unhooked upper radiator hose. Unplugged both electric fans, unbolted them, slid them up & out. Took a flat screw driver & prided each aluminum tab from core back away from plastic tank. Tank easily lifted out. Left gasket in place & dried it with a cloth.
Mended the crack using 1000f soder gun to melt/mix plastic over crack. Then laid a strip of aluminum window screen across crack area covering about an inch beyond crack on all sides. Melted screen into plastic using the soder gun & smooth roughed up melted plastic.
Reinstalled mended tank. Used a large channel pliers to squeezed both sides of aluminum core back up to meet edge of tank lips(center to right & center to left). Then using a large vise grips set to an initial soft-squeeze setting & started in middle of tank to re-squeeze tabs downward onto tank lip. Again center to right/center to left/squeeze a few on both sides as you move). Then tightened vise grips a turn & squeeze tabs again. Then 3rd time tightening vise grips another turn & repeat.
Reinstalled everything, refilled coolant. & no leaks.
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Replies:
Posted By: Codger
Date Posted: 17 May 2025 at 2:53pm
Did that a time or two in the past. Proved it wasn't a sound long term viable solution to replacing the radiator. Tanks usually will crack elsewhere. Probably alright for self use, but when something fails on a customer's vehicle even if totally irrelevant to your repair, somebody is not happy.
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That's All Folks!
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