Topic 3474 (1 Viewer)

[landtank]

As some might know I'm starting a large PM on my truck in a few days. Thios was brought on by a large amount of sludge found in my cooling system a few months ago. I thought I'd start a new thread on particular topics I look at to try to make it less confusing.

First up is my radiator.
I called a shop today about having my existing radiator serviced. They said that to pull the tanks and flush/inspect it for cantamination would be $75.00 with a 70% success rate that when reassembled it would not leak. I really don't have the cash right now to replace it although I aggree that would be the best thing to do.

Is there anything I might be able to do myself to try to determine what kind of shape it is in? Or maybe just wait a bit and replace when the funds are available?

Thanks

 

[Rich]

Radiator

If I recall, you're planning on replacing your headgasket, but you don't actually know that it is leaking, right? I'd suggest that your known problem with a compromised cooling system should to be your top priority and not the head gasket.

I removed my radiator and had it pressure flushed by a radiator shop. That removed all visible sludge from the top tank. There was never any significant amount of visible sludge in the bottom of the radiator. It collects primarily in the top tank starting from the passenger side. The radiator shop did not charge me for the work, though I did not and would not expect to get free service. $100 dollars would have gotten the radiator rodded out.

Remove the inlet pipe to the heater cores and connect a length of tubing to the inlets (one at a time) to act as a drain line. Buy 1/2 and 5/8 barbed garden hose adapters and connect a garden hose to the heater outlets (passenger side firewall) and reverse flush the heater cores. You will see a bunch of sludge come out. The metal inlet y fitting to the heater cores has a "drip leg" that also accumulates sludge. It appears to be designed for that purpose. Be sure to flush it out. Your garden hose will have enough flow to flush the sludge from the heater cores. Your garden hose will not have enough flow the flush the radiator. There will be sludge elsewhere in your engine. Expect to see more accumulate in your cleaned radiator.

 

[BMT]

Radiator

Buy a new factory radiator. I know its not cheap but its worth the piece of mind.

 

[Photoman]

Radiator

Rick,

If it helps you, you can have the one I took of my 97 for the shipping. It had about 35k miles on it. I would just like one trans cooler back. There was never an interior problem with it.

With the old rads, I used to unsoder the tanks and take a 1/16" acetylene welding rod and rod the tubes out, but with the crimped on plastic tanks that's no longer an option for the average person. The only thing to do after a regular flush is when you have it out run a hose in where the top hose goes in for a bit; flip in over and do the same from the bottom.

Bill

 

[landtank]

Radiator

Does anyone know the capacity of the 2 row aluminum radiator? My thinking is if I were to measure my capacity and compare it to what should be there then I'd get an idea of how the radiator is. For example: new = 1.5 gallons, I have 1 gallon, then I'm 33% clogged.

I just have that image from Christos cut away in my head and being it's winter even if I have an issue I wouldn't know it.

 

[Rich]

Radiator

It's not that simple. What you really want to know, is given a specified flow rate, and specified temperature differential between inlet coolant temp and air temp, how much heat can the radiator transfer from the coolant to the air. Unfortunately, it takes specialized equipment to measure that.

However, radiator shops can measure, at a controlled pressure, what the flow rate through the radiator is. Compared to the expected flow rate this will tell you how "clogged" the radiator is. Knowing the volume of sludge in the engine will not allow you to directly determine how much the flow has been reduced.

Even knowing the flow rate does not always tell the whole story, as it is possible for deposits to occur that do not substaintially obstruct flow (because they are distributed thinly on the tubes) but do substaintially reduce the heat transfer from the coolant to the tubes to the air.

Its never simple as you would like it to be.

Rich

 

[landtank]

Radiator

Well I start tomorrow, it's starting to like like a small leak in the rad might not be so bad. That way the decission is made for me.

 

[cruiserdan]

Radiator

Not fair if you poke a screwdriver thru it

 

[landtank]

Now the throttle body

Well started to tear into it today. Thought some might like to see what a neglected throttle body looks like after 130k. I had reached in there about 2 months ago and cleaned what I could without removing it. You can see that the top of the throttle plate is a little cleaner. I did run a K&N filter for a while but that has seen the trash for a few months now.

 

[MoJ]

Re:Now the throttle body

Rick-
Thanks for the picture. It's informative for a 1 banana guy like myself. If I had a FSM in hand (already ordered from Dan-the-Man) how would you rate the difficulty of removing & cleaning the throttle body? I'd like to get in there and thoroughly clean it with hope of stopping the high start up idle as that's the only complaint I have with my 80.
Thanks,
Jason

 

[landtank]

Now the throttle body

Not that hard at all. Three cables, two coolant lines, two electrical connections, four bolts and the intake tube. Well at leats that's what I remember .

 

[Lars]

Now the throttle body

Wait until you gain access to the intake and see inside of it for the fiirst time... ick!

Hope your project goes smoothly!

 

[landtoy80]

Re:Now the throttle body

Rick be sure to take pic of the EGR port in the intake chamber.

 

[landtank]

Now the throttle body

The head will be off tomorrow. I'll e-mail them direct to you. So if you watch your mail you might be able to catch me if you need another shot.

 

[landtank]

Heads off!

Well damn glad I did this. Even though it wasn't part of my decission making but still had an issue. Not sure what the effects would be but I feel good about what I'm doing.

I have a pic from the water jacket area around cylinder 6 which was coming apart but could have been from removing it as theyt stick down in place. My friend saw the exposed area and picked at it which makes it look even worse.

 

[landtank]

Now the throttle body

Here is the water jacket at 6 of the old gasket

 

[landtank]

Now the throttle body

And here is a shot of the new improved gasket with more meat around the holes

 

[Cruiserdrew]

The head is off

Rick-you are my hero. This is awesome stuff. I was actually thinking about doing this at say 120k if mine goes that far just for insurance. Please keep a list of parts needed and keep the pics coming. If it doesn't work out, I'll load it on the trailer and tow it out to Slees. Great DIY project.

 

[bjowett]

The head is off

Rick, could I bother you for some full shots of both gaskets, comparing the various cut outs for the coolant passages? In my experience with this (which is limited, more below) oems usually reduce hole size to increase the temperature that head runs at. This reduces emmisions, but produces a warmer head, which can be good or bad... depends on many other aspects which I will not even begin to try and understand.

For an example, on the VR6 VW engine, 92 and 93 received larger holes in the gaskets for coolant flow, as opposed to the later years. They generally ran cooler temps and made more power with that gasket. Many folks, including me, would modify the coolant holes on the new gasket to match the old superceded large hole unit. Funny thing, the early gaskets also had external leakage problems, the newer gasket, even modded, did not.

 

[landtank]

The head is off

With the exception of the 2 holes I showed they were identical, but I'll check again. One thing I didn't realize is that the exhaust gases for the EGR are picked up from the exhaust manifold at the #6 cylinder and then passed through the head behind #6 where it is again picked up on the other side via a tube up to the EGR valve. Don't remember anyone mentioning cleaning that passage for the P0401 code.