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I got a decent radiator from the junkyard today, and desperately need to get it swapped in. I need to thoroughly clean it out as my car uses Dexcool, the orange stuff. It’s not official Dexcool, but it’s the Prestone Orange Dexcool equivalent. I’ve heard the many DexKill horror stories but I have to say it’s treated me very well over the years. I’ve also had it changed out at around 75k due to an accident ruining my radiator, and then I did a flush at around 150k, broke my water pipe when I changed my thermostat so I had about 3 change outs during that fiasco of a repair process, ha, but I digress…
The issue here begins in that the car I got the radiator from had Green coolant in it. This was my second junkyard of the day and I had been out there for a good few hours so I really wasn’t putting two and two together. I just wanted to get the damned thing and get out of there and this radiator looked to be in wonderful shape so I went with it. The green vs. orange didn’t hit me until I got home.
What can I do to ensure I clean the innards of this radiator immaculately? Assuming it’s one of those cross flow pattern ones, or whatever its called, I know it may be tricky or time consuming but it must be done. My plan of attack is currently brake cleaner and clean drinking water. I don’t have much else at my disposal. I also planned on grabbing a bottle of radiator flush, I guess pour it directly in the radiator and shake it all about? I don’t access to shop air but I do have some canned air keyboard cleaner stuff. Anyone know of anything else I can do to ensure I have no issues with the two mixing or anything?
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Trying to be a smart ass with very helpful people here but not smart enough to afford a new radiator apparently.
You know you don’t put water through any cooler that has to run ATF through it.If you want to clean out the ATF cooler then run some fresh ATF through the ATF cooler 2 or 3 times. This should flush out any foreign material that is loose in there plus any remnants of the old ATF. Just use the same ATF type the vehicle'[s transmission uses.
Oops, too late now I suppose. I did use brake.cleaner through the cooler and it sat for a good 5 hours before I installed it. Hopefully that was enough time to dry.
I wasn’t trying to.be a smartass, I’m sorry you took it that way. I was asking a legitimate question. I guess that does explain why I can’t afford a new radiator. No, I didn’t know you aren’t supposed to do that. You were wrong in telling me what I do and do not know. I guess we both got a little reminder of our stupidity today. I’ll try to not let the door hit my wishfully overinflated head on the way out. I didn’t realize I entered a place too far advanced for the likes of me. ✌
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