Radiator change

[Mercutio]

When I bought my flood victim car the radiator was spewing fluid when the water reached boiling temp. The stock and replacemet radiator was fabricated from Alumiun and plastic. The seal between the two gave way, probably from me pulling and tugging on it in order to remove the plastic filler Y-shaped hose connector thing. The radiator fluid was evaporating, causing the temp sensor to come on. Smelling up the place with radiator fluid smell and requiring me to drive around with a gallon of pipe water everywhere. With the approaching winter....

Removal process was pretty simple. Removed the cross bar(thats what I'm calling it) the horn, the fan and overflow housing. The temperature sensor. Nevere had a grille so If you have one I supposed tht whould need to be removed.
About 3, 10mm screws were so rusty the simply broke when I tried to take them off.
Anyways the project took me about 5 hours. Needed 10mm, 12mm, & 19mm sockets. Box cutter, screwdriver TEFLON TAPE and WD40.
I just realized the transmission fluid runs through the radiator. Is that right???

Got the cheapest radiator on ebay, but it didn't fit 100%. The connections were there, great!
But the mounting points on the car were not properly aligned with holes in the body.
I had to cut the rubber mounting bushings, cut the little pipe that comes from the petcock.


Moving right along check out the pics below.


Left in the fan portion because It was a struggle to disconnect the fan.


The old radiatior. The fins were dinsintegrating.


The new radiator. Cost effective, had all the connections, but BUT, did not fit well into the frame. Its in the car now but under pressure from the cross beam, because its greater in height than the original.
Best bet is to buy a OEM version that fits correctly. I may have made a mistake as my car has AC. Maybe the AC version is different from non-AC. But from my knowledge all models come with AC, right??


Enjoy.