{"id":2131,"date":"2019-06-16T11:09:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T19:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/?p=2131"},"modified":"2019-06-16T11:14:08","modified_gmt":"2019-06-16T19:14:08","slug":"operation-radiator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/2019\/06\/16\/operation-radiator\/","title":{"rendered":"Operation: Radiator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday morning I made a pile of hash browns for the family, cleaned up the kitchen, and ran a bunch of tools out to the garage to get a long-awaited project started: installing a new aluminum radiator.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"DSCF5122\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/idiotking\/48070378221\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/48070378221_2acfc5692c_c.jpg?resize=800%2C534&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"DSCF5122\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m always conscious of starting projects that I might not be able to finish in a weekend, and this time I was under the added pressure to getting it done by the afternoon, because we had family plans for Sunday. Additionally, I&#8217;ve got an appointment next Saturday across town to have the caster correctors installed, so I wanted to have everything road tested and ready. I have anxiety about having a broken-down truck sitting in the driveway with an appointment on the horizon.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"DSCF5117\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/idiotking\/48070429793\/in\/photostream\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/48070429793_d9bf9c3599_c.jpg?resize=800%2C534&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"DSCF5117\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>First, I drained the coolant. It came out relatively clean, a little milky from age but not black. I got about two and a half gallons out from the stopcock and the lower rad hose into an old cat litter pan. Then I pulled the lower hose and the upper hose, disconnected the shroud mount and pulled that apart into two sections, and loosened the body bolts. Everything came off smoothly; nothing needed PB Blaster (although I used it) to get started, which was a blessing.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ovCknArqLeA?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"853\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Once that was done, the old radiator came out easily. The bottom was getting corroded but it wasn&#8217;t as bad as my spare, where the bottom rail is disconnected from the frame.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"DSCF5120\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/idiotking\/48070483702\/in\/photostream\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/48070483702_686a3f066d_c.jpg?resize=800%2C534&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"DSCF5120\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Then I pulled the new one out of the box and slid it right in place\u2014this time I stood and straddled the fenders to drop it in from the top. Hand-tightening the body bolts, I put new hoses on above and below. The lower hose needed a 2&#8243; trim to avoid a bad kink in the bendy section but other than that they both slid right on. Next I hooked up the overflow tank for the first time since I&#8217;ve owned it: the old radiator was missing the brazed nipple on the cap valve. Then I installed and adjusted the shroud mount and shroud itself, tightened the body bolts down, and checked all of the fittings.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing I didn&#8217;t have were two blockoff bolts for the automatic transmission inlet\/outlet, so I ran around town to find a set and found them at Advance. They&#8217;re brass but I wrapped them in Teflon tape and tightened them into place.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"DSCF5126\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/idiotking\/48070378076\/in\/photostream\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/48070378076_df5ba94bda_c.jpg?resize=800%2C534&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"DSCF5126\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Finally, I put about 2 1\/2 gallons of new 50\/50 antifreeze in the system, topped off the overflow tank (I need a new one, because the plastic mounting brackets have both snapped off), said a prayer, and started her up. I idled in the driveway for 15 minutes, pausing only to cap off the radiator once the bubbles stopped, and let her get up to temperature.<\/p>\n<p>I had to stop at that point for dinner and other family stuff, so Sunday morning I took a 20 minute ride around the neighborhood to shake the hoses around and see how things held up. I chose a route that featured lousy roads (there are no shortage of those) and lights to stop at and some long stretches and banged her around a bit, and I didn&#8217;t see any leaks or steam. The temp gauge stayed pegged to the left side of the horizontal bar. <em>Success!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Should I have flushed the system while I had it open? <em>probably<\/em>. In the fall I&#8217;ll have Jiffy Lube do it for me when I get the oil changed. Could I have saved money mixing antifreeze myself? <em>definitely.<\/em> But I was in a hurry and I had nothing else to mix it in.<\/p>\n<p>Special thanks go to my pop, whose tools I inherited, which made everything much, much easier. Happy Father&#8217;s Day, Dad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday morning I made a pile of hash browns for the family, cleaned up the kitchen, and ran a bunch of tools out to the garage to get a long-awaited project started: installing a new aluminum radiator. I&#8217;m always conscious of starting projects that I might not be able to finish in a weekend, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[61,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radiator","category-repairs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p58Ac2-yn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2131"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2138,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131\/revisions\/2138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}