Hole in Radiator

Had an air cooler sealed once with the glue. The Guy drove 20 miles picked it up, boiled it out,and delivered it back for $25 or $30. I wish I had his #. Probably dead now. I don’t know how he made money. He glued it all the way along the hot side. The whole header, it was shot!! Fixed it though. No leaks.

 

Well now that the original leak is temporarily fixed. Found another tiny one. ATA is blocking the front. Can’t get any zip ties through it. I cleaned it up, slapped a piece of the sound deadening material on it. The butyl sticky stuff might hold on its own. Same stuff as Trailer quick patch, without the aluminum and foam instead. Plan on taking each header off and blocking out the vains on each side with solder. Might use JB first, just in case, then solder. That will be a permanent repair. If it were an old radiator it wouldn’t matter. $1250 2 yrs ago, now they’re $1550 now. It ain’t pretty, did it in the dark, but so far it’s still working.

 

Well it ain’t pretty. It’s a lot of labor time wise taking off the grill, cac, and both side tanks. 88 bolts altogether. Cleaned inside of each vein real good. I got carried away on the solder. Lol. 7 leaking veins altogether. 2 were so small only showed up under pressure as seeping on a paper towel held up against it. Eventually they would get worse. Ain’t no way it’s going to leak. That’s for sure. Good as new. Still can’t believe I ran 1800 miles with it patched up. Praying the whole time. Lol.

 

One last update. After snugging the bolts up pretty good, without cranking on them, I ran it with water and left the new cap loose, and the gaskets seeped. Added almost 2 gallons over 2 weeks. Flushed and filled with coolant. Ran another 6 weeks, about 10k miles. Still left cap loose. It still seeped slightly on and off, had to add a gallon of coolant. Last weekend I checked the bolts, they were all loose. I torqued them all pretty tight. Made a custom bent wrench to fit behind the CAC. Added what should be the last gallon of coolant, and put the cap on tight. I’ve ran 1500 miles. Idled it. Total 55 hrs running time. No leaks at all. The side tanks metal flat bars act like a header plate. I guess to avoid bending the tanks, like a valve cover or transmission pan on cars bend when over tightened. So when you tighten a few bolts, the others become loose. Have to keep rechecking them. Getting all of them evenly tight. I’m confident it won’t leak anymore. Seems like once the gaskets cure a bit, it’s OK to crank the bolts tight. That seems have worked on mine anyways. If by chance I wake up to a cold leak, I’ll report it tomorrow. Otherwise I think it’s fixed for good now. Hopefully this will help someone else in the future.