Radiator Repair

[49battlewagon]

On my 49 power wagon I pickup another radiator to replace the old one. After I washed out 60 some years of dirt and bugs I noticed the filler neck is pushed down alittle. Must of had a hit downwards on it. Any ideas on how I could pull it back up? Its down some maybe it won't show up after it is together.

[Doc Dave]

John,
It might be good to have a radiator shop pressure test it as well as advise on the neck. Should not cost much just for those things and you would know.
The big bucks come into play with recoring, etc.

[Gordon Maney]

Good advice from Dave.

[gyman98]

You may want to think about having it rodded or do a flush your self. I can detail my method which works very well if you are interested

[49battlewagon]

Yes I am interested with any good info. Rodded ? I'm not sure on this.

[Gordon Maney]

Rodding out a radiator involves removing the top and bottom tanks, then pushing cleaning tool through every single core tube. It removes encrusted deposits from the inner wall surface of the tubes.

[gyman98]

Yes that's a great description of rodding.

I've always found old rads to be plugged with deposits and scaling, this is what works well for me:

Lay the rad on its front with the upper and lower rad hose connections facing the sky. Add a good quality rad flush equally to the top and bottom tanks. Fill the remainder of the tanks with clean water but not into the hose connector. On the directions note the time they recommend the flush to work for. Every few mins pick up the rad with a hand over each hose connection and swish the solution back and forth by flipping the rad so the top tank is down then up then down. The 2 air pockets you left in will let it move back and forth through the cores.

After the specified time drain the solution into a clean container and flush both ways with clean water until crud stops coming out.


This may cause a rad to leak if a hole or thin spot was covered in crud but the rad obviously wasn't good anyways.

On a friends dye and scanner this solved the almost zero flow on the rad of my 67 power wagon. 3 years and its still keeping the 440 cool!

Have done this on a few rads since and have had excellent results every time

[49battlewagon]

Thank You so much for the info.

[gmharris]

Use a flashlight and look through the radiator fill to gauge the condition of the tubes. If they are fairly clean, you can just flush.

If there is no leak and the tubes are not badly clogged, there's no need to have the radiator rodded out. One radiator shop told me that because the tanks are crimped on,they are likely to leak if taken off.

Minor leaks can be fixed with stop leak or soldered shut. The radiators were well built and have excess cooling capacity if the rest of the cooling system is in good condition.

Re-cores cost $600, so do what you can to save yours.

[49battlewagon]

I took a garden hose and ran clean water from top of the radiator watching the flow rate on the bottom. It handled all the water with no problem. Still going to buy a flush kit.I'm thinking it is a good one for my 49 ffpw. I have always worked on my own trucks. Born and raised a chevy man until last year.Loved the looks of the power wagons. These are built like a tank. The history behind them are pretty cool.My father in law is a WW2 vet, Air force motor pool. He remembers them very well.

[gmharris]

Checking the flow rate with a garden hose is a good idea. The radiator should easily handle the full flow of a garden hose. Or, you can fill the radiator, then release the water from the bottom. The water should leave in a sudden rush. If it passes the test, you probably don't need to take it to a radiator shop for a rodout.

It's best to turn the radiator upside down and flush from the bottom. There's likely to be rust, scale and quite a bit of junk that won't pass through the tubes if you flush only from the top.

I use diluted muriatic acid to clean the radiator. There are instructions on the web. Be careful and wear eye protection and follow safety procedures.

While you have the radiator out is the time to clean the block. There's probably an unbelievable amount of dirt and stuff in the block. Unfortunately, with an old truck one thing leads to another in a, seemingly, unending chain.

Oh, and don't forget the water distribution tube.