I decided to go ahead and flush the radiator on my 60.

I am doing a little bit of driving with it and hope to improve her little by little.

During the flush, I found out I have a few holes up high (upper 6 inches or so of the fins, front and back, and at least one on the seam near the top of the radiator).

Can someone explain to me the lingo regarding radiators?

I was reading old posts to see what I needed to do (actually to see if anyone talked about throwing 'stop leak' or something like that in the radiator) and kept reading about the 'core', 'lower ?', 'upper ?', re-coring' and '2/3/4 ? cores'.
Sorry about the question marks, it was late and about a week ago when I went through the old posts.

My neighbor said 'pull it and he can get it patched', but again, I am not sure if that is a bubble gum (temporary) solution or permanent. I am also curious, how you patch a radiator.

Another tidbit of information (relevant, I don't know). The left 4 - 6 inches of the radiator were cool to the touch after doing the flush, filling with water, and running 20 minutes. Does that indicate I do not have flow through that part of the radiator or something else? Serious or kinda serious, or just 80% efficient instead of 100% efficient.


The other thing that caught my attention in the posts talked about painting (or not painting) the radiator because it would insulate it and reduce the effectiveness of disapating heat, or something like that.


And I guess one other thing.
Does anyone know if the pet friendly coolant/antifreeze is better/worse then the regular stuff. The cost was the same and I thought if I was going to be leaking a bit, it made sense to keep from killing a few of the local critters.


Hope everyone has a good weekend.

 

The non-toxic anti-freeze is as good as the regular anti-freeze. no problems in using it in any vehicle.



rgds
Mike

 

When a radiator is re-cored the radiator shop removes the top and bottom, or left and right, ends of the radiator and replaces the center "core". Some radiators have more than one core, that's where 2/3/4 core comes from. The more cores you have the more heat transfer. My pickup and panel truck on 2 core radiators while my bigger F-4 has a three core.

Some times if you only have a couple of leaks you can pinch off the tubes in the core that are leaking and soldier the ends. If your core is in bad condition and you try to pinch off a tube you will start chasing leaks, the same goes with using a stop leak problem. If your core is weak you will just blug one leak and pressure will build somewhere else.[/quote]

 

The core is the row of tubes going from tank to tank-the number of cores signifies how many sets of tubes. Holes in the tubes can be soldered by a good radiator shop-it takes experience and the right equipment. Often, re-coring is a better option-the entire tube/fin assembly is replaced, using your original tanks.

 

Cores are also refered to as rows. My radiator is a three row. Most come in two or three row although four row is also used for heavy duy applications. Radiator stop leak products are usually a band-aid fix but might get you home or hold until you can get the radiator properly repaired or replaced. A fix by a radiator shop (if you can find one) is better as they use solder to fix the leak and test it for pressure and other leaks you may not be aware of. They can also let you know if the radiator is worth fixing as sometimes the only option is replacement of the core. Paint will not hurt the effectiveness of the radiator...even radiator shops paint radiator tanks and side straps although I avoid painting the core.

 

Your hoses hook to the necks that are soldered/welded to the "tanks". They can be on the top/bottom or the sides of the core.

The finned area between the tanks is the "core". This carries the coolant between the two tanks. This is that the air passes through and cools the small tubes carrying the coolant.

If you have a top and bottom tank, you are a down flow radiator. If your tanks are on the sides, you are a cross flow radiator.

If you look into the radiator cap neck and look down into the bottom of the top tank towards the core (without any liquid in there) you will see a series of oval or round holes going towards the other tank. If you count the number of rows that are open and being used, that is how many "core" or "row" tank you have. Most tanks will hold 4 cores but only 2 or 3 are used. The remainder of these holes are plugged off (soldered).

More is not necessarily better. You can actually stop the air flow through the cores with a 4 row where a 2 row would do the job. It's all a balancing act. If you plan a lot of highway driving at high speeds or going to the truck races at Daytona, you could use a 4 core or thicker because the air will be forced through the fins at speed. If you do a lot of around town driving, I would look more towards a 2 core or 3 core with wider fin spacing.

You can get cores in many configurations. Fin count/spacing, length and width, material are all considerations.

Painting a radiator is OK as long as you don't glob on the paint. A light coat for color is OK but stay away from the heavy coats. The tanks can stand a little more paint than the core can. Just mist the core to tinge it black. An old radiator shop may have special paint for this. Many just give it a squirt out of a common spray can.

If one side is cold to the touch, I would be willing to bet somebody has already used stop leak and a portion of your core is plugged.

I would suggest taking your radiator out, getting it to a good old fashioned radiator shop and having it boiled out, repaired/recored as they suggest and being happy all summer vs fighting heating problems.

Another thing to watch is that once the radiator is in top shape and you are getting full flow, your heater core may be the next thing to go. Always seems to work that way for me!

SPark

 

Education is a great thing.

Thanks for everyones feedback.

I couldn't tell you how if it is a 2 core (I think it is) or not. I think I read this, but could not tell an obvious see of it by looking into the radiator.

Looks like the wise thing for me to do is pull the radiator and have it done right the first time. Also, a good opportunity to replace the hoses, I'm thinking.

Thanks for your help, and hope the heater core hangs in there Thinking about bypassing it actually. Well, I'll probably leave it alone until it causes me a problem. This in not a show truck, so some spillage won't hurt me at this point.