Changing Radiator - Real Time Help Needed

[phxtlc]

Changing Radiator - bottom foam

Ok, Solved most of my issues. I pulled the radiator out and have the new one ready. I bought the foam for the face but now realize there also foam between the bottom of the radiator and the crossmember. How important is this? Honestly it seems like it gets wet easily and would lead to rust.

 

[CodyRx7]

The more air forced to go through the radiator, the better.

I don't have any foam left after my radiator replacement (broke the bypass nipple), never reinstalled the fan shroud (broke it, threw it away) and the only issue I have is warm A/C when I'm in traffic.

(this seems to be a problem even with people who still have the foam and shroud tho - I plan to fix this with an electric pusher fan behind the LX grill)

 

[RHINO]

its not that important, like cody said the foam makes a seal to fill the gaps between the rad and body so as much air as possible goes through the radiator. the foam works of course, but i went to home depot and found some rubberized weatherstrip to do this.

 

[Cantinero]

i went to home depot and found some rubberized weatherstrip to do this.

I did the same when I tore my front end apart to do my water pump and ALL my cooling system hoses. Home Depot sells a generic weatherstrip for autos/marine use.

 

[Tools R Us]

It's important, the fan can only move so much air and in our climate you want as much airflow as possible doing work.

I use high density foam weather-strip tape with good results. Any foam used needs to be closed cell, so it's waterproof, if not it will soak up water, become heavy and fall out.

The easy "self adhesive" on it, isn't as sticky as one would hope some masking tape is required for installation. The way I get around that is use foam tape that's way to thick, then when the radiator is bolted back in place it's overly crushed, holding it in place. IIRC when we did Rob's last year, the biggest we could find was 3/4x3/4", so we stuck two strips together, it was plenty thick and is still working well. On the 80 there are strips on the top and bottom tanks, most of the time the bottom one falls out first. I also add some where the wire harness goes through on each side near the top tank.

 

[phxtlc]

I installed continuous weather strip around the entire face of the radiator. The stuff I'm speaking of sat below the bottom tank and the cross member it was about 2x3 inches. Not a problem to add something down the road as I can reach it from below.

Did learn one thing...those upper radiator bushings on a 92 are a huge PIA!

 

[Tools R Us]

... The stuff I'm speaking of sat below the bottom tank and the cross member it was about 2x3 inches. Not a problem to add something down the road as I can reach it from below...

You want the fan to draw fresh air from the grill side and exhaust it under the truck, the fan causes a slight negative pressure on the grill side and positive pressure under the hood. Any opening close to the radiator will allow preheated air to recirculate when the truck is stopped, slightly reducing efficiency and with our climate we need all of the help we can get. I would cram some foam in there.

 

[phoenixrider]

anybody ever install hood vents? I know a few jeep people do to help cool while crawling.

 

[import silvia]

anybody ever install hood vents? I know a few jeep people do to help cool while crawling.

I have tossed around the idea of adding some louvers to my hood to aid in cooling. But I'm not sure I have any real need anymore. Since adding engine & tranny oil coolers, replacing my radiator, and a bunch os system flushes it is runing quite well. I can crawl around for a pretty long time with the AC running and not get above the second temp line.

 

[Tools R Us]

anybody ever install hood vents? I know a few jeep people do to help cool while crawling.

Haven't done it on a cruiser, but have on 4runners. We found that they made zero measurable difference in anything that matters, cooling system, A/C vent temps, etc. One side effect that we noticed was, at low speeds, like your cruising down forest roads with the window open, the hot stinky air from the vents blew in the front windows and hit the driver/passenger in the face, nice! I far prefer the factory designed blow the hot air out underneath plan.

Normal hood vents require high speed airflow over the top side to draw air out, some air will flow when stopped, crawling, but it's relatively insignificant compared to the fan output. I ran most of last summer with temp sensors under the hood and my observation is that Toyota did a pretty good job with the airflow. I couldn't find the dead, restricted air spot that some were babbling about on the 80's forum.

If you like the vent look, go for it, but if your looking for a big measurable improvement in cooling you will probably be disappointed. If you want to vent air, you want to vent the hottest air, on the 80 it's close to center, towards the rear of the hood. When the truck is at speed, the coolest air is close to the fenders, it's near ambient temp, if vents are located in the traditional sports car place, at the edges of the hood this cool air will be vented and will be replaced by hot fan output air. I will bet that Toyota engineers knew about or designed this cool airflow and that's why the air intake, injector resister, ABS unit, etc are in the coolest airflow areas.

It's hard to see airflow, so unless you study it with instruments, it's far easier to mess it up than to make big improvements.