Radiator Replacement – 1989 Honda Accord Lxi 1/14

[Gene]

Background

OK, so here is how I replaced the radiator on my 1989 Honda Accord, 5-speed, Lxi, with the fuel injected A20A3 engine. Hope this isn’t preaching to the choir or so grossly redundant as to be an annoyance. Eric’s videos on the radiator replacement on a vintage Civic and his Accura Vigor, are helpful. This repair was more like the Civic, so hope this adds to depth to the knowledge base for anyone that comes along in the future? This is the least I can do to pay back for this great resource.

I was rather slow and deliberate with the process. Asked a bunch of questions here, watched Eric’s radiator videos and took my time buying parts (finding the cheapest/good ones).

I ended up buying a Denso radiator because Denso is one of the OEM manufacturers. Also bought new upper and lower hoses and new clamps. The thermostat was replaced after the water pump repair and before this repair.

Oh and I had already taken the lower shield off. I might do a step by step on that later when I put it back on.

Flushing Cooling System

So first step, for me, was flushing the cooling system to remove any built up gunk. [the thermostat repair suggested a fair amount of hardening of the arteries (calcified deposits) inside the cooling system. No point in installing a NEW radiator with junk in the engine and then flushing the system – only to run any dislodged gunk through the new radiator!

I bought a quart jug of Zerex, Radiator Super Cleaner. The instructions were a pain with many steps:
[ul]

Topic

[Lorrin Barth]

When you wrote you were doing a writeup on your radiator replacement I thought – boring. But, no, this is really great. I enjoyed it. Showed it to my wife. She liked it, remarking on the great photography.

So, one of the better write ups I’ve seen here. It should be more than helpful for anyone attempted this job.

[James O’Hara]

Man that was an excellent. I also like the flagging bolts part it does help a lot on a big job.

[Kevin]

I’ve found it’s a good idea to replace the radiator bolts with stainless steel. I had a devil of a time extracting the rad bolts on my ’05 Pilot when I first bought it 2 1/2 years ago since all but one of them had firmly rusted in place and the flimsy plastic nut holders were of no help. The OEM rad was a Denso unit but the new Denso unit I bought came with an improved fastening set-up which did away with those worthless plastic nut holders. I went to our local hardware store and picked up the appropriate size bolts since I didn’t want to deal with the possibility of seized bolts the next time.

I’m gonna do the same thing on my ’98 CRV (which has the same Denso-style plastic nut housings) when I swap out the rad in a week or two. The new Denso unit has the same improved fastener set-up(as the Pilot’s) so I’ll be making another trip to the hardware store for SS bolts.

[Kevin]

I would like to add that I think it’s a good idea to go with Honda’s blue coolant in their older models as well since it’s easier on the WP. It also seems to be easier on the hoses as well as the factory hoses on my ’98 V were ten years old when I finally decided to swap them out. I only replaced them since I didn’t want to take any chances with 10+ year old hoses although they appeared to be perfectly fine. I was amazed how pliable they still were when I pried them off. I recently picked up two jugs of Honda’s coolant online at Majestic Honda for a little over $13/gal which isn’t that much more than the traditional green stuff.

BTW, how’s your ’89 Accord running? I ask because I hated to sell my ’88 Accord(it was 15 years old at the time with 235,000 miles on the clock) because the engine still purred like a kitten when I sold it for a song to my wife’s coworker since she was in dire need of a vehicle. It just had other issues(leaking heater core, driver’s power window binding,etc) which I didn’t feel like dealing with at the time. It still had the original lower ball joints and outer tie rods but I had replaced the upper arm ball joint assemblies in the front and rear and the suspension was free of clunks when I sold it.

[Gene]

[quote=”headknocker” post=151409]I would like to add that I think it’s a good idea to go with Honda’s blue coolant in their older models as well since it’s easier on the WP. It also seems to be easier on the hoses as well as the factory hoses on my ’98 V were ten years old when I finally decided to swap them out. I only replaced them since I didn’t want to take any chances with 10+ year old hoses although they appeared to be perfectly fine. I was amazed how pliable they still were when I pried them off. I recently picked up two jugs of Honda’s coolant online at Majestic Honda for a little over $13/gal which isn’t that much more than the traditional green stuff.[/quote]

Interesting. From what I read, it seemed like the green stuff was the right stuff for that vintage Honda. I looked at the blue stuff and the orange stuff. I even considered the Royal Purple stuff. In the end (and perhaps my research was flawed) I think the green stuff will work – the key being to change it out every other year! Thankfully in my jurisdiction I can pout the old stuff down the drain.

.
.
[quote=”headknocker” post=151409]BTW, how’s your ’89 Accord running? I ask because I hated to sell my ’88 Accord(it was 15 years old at the time with 235,000 miles on the clock) because the engine still purred like a kitten when I sold it for a song to my wife’s coworker since she was in dire need of a vehicle. It just had other issues(leaking heater core, driver’s power window binding,etc) which I didn’t feel like dealing with at the time. It still had the original lower ball joints and outer tie rods but I had replaced the upper arm ball joint assemblies in the front and rear and the suspension was free of clunks when I sold it.[/quote]

The engine on my 89 Accord LXI is running great! Always was one for regular oil changes and this year it just turned over 250K miles! Rebuilt the front end this Spring: UCAs, Struts, TREs and stabilizer links. But front end parts have always been an issue. Maybe the double wishbone, “coil over” style to the suspension induces someone to drive more aggressively and wear them out? I dunno?

Then there was the cooling system overhaul/deferred maintenance. Looking at a new steering rack. Might spend the winter hunting down AC parts, since I had success bring the Ford AC back to life this summer, might do a fullR-134a conversion. Know I need a receiver/drier and at least a condenser as the fins are falling off. Might look into new lines too and have toyed with just buying a new compressor for good measure. Prolly looking at a good $400 in parts alone- but that is better than the $1,000+ quoted by most shops!

Now if I could just get the cruise control back on line, I’d be happy! That’s prolly another write up some time?

[Author]

Replies