Re: Alfetta radiator repair

[Scott Fisher <sfisher71@domain.elided>]

--- "Zacharey Cox (Siemens Business Services Inc)"
<v-ntxzco@domain.elided> wrote:

> [...] I have a spare radiator but it has a
> crack at the upper hose connection.  I called a
> nearby radiator shop & they want about $50 to fix
> & test i, I could buy 3 cases of Castrol for
> that!!  I'd rather try & fix it myself.  What's the
> best method of attempting to fix this correctly?  

The best method of fixing it correctly is to pay the
shop the damn fifty bucks and be done with it. 
Cheapest, surest, least work, probably guaranteed for
30-90 days or more.  An absolute no-brainer of a
decision.  

But somehow I suspect this is not what you wanted to
hear.

The right way to do it at home is going to cost you
close to $50 in equipment and an afternoon or two of
your own time, but you WILL learn a new skill --
brazing/soldering with a torch.  And half the reason
that many of us have old cars is to learn new skills. 
So you have to decide whether you want to invest in
the learning curve of a new skill, or just want to
drive your car.  I'm leaning more towards the latter
these days, but that could be just me.

Begin by getting a brazing torch, either propane or
the hotter stuff (MAPP gas? I can't recall now...) and
an appropriate solder for brass, or whatever metal the
Alfetta radiator uses (probably what is called silver
solder).  A really good hardware store can help you
make the right selection.  Note: don't bother with
cheap torches, a cheap torch will splutter and make it
difficult to control the temperature.  I really used
to like my Whirlwind brand brazing torch -- used it
for all kinds of things, from brazing and soldering to
freeing rusted fasteners.

1.  Remove all the grease from the area suspected of
having the crack.  Grease can catch fire.  Note: if
you don't remove all the grease, you will learn
another useful skill: how to put grease fires out with
a propane torch.  (See, now, if you never did stupid
$#!+ like this, you'd never learn how to save your @$$
in an emergency, would you?)

2.  Seal up the radiator, fill with liquid, pressurize
to find all the leaks.  Mark the leaks clearly, then
drain the radiator.

3.  Using the torch, heat the area around each crack
(the metal will change color slightly as it heats). 
While playing the tip of the torch near the crack but
not where you will be soldering, run the end of the
solder bar or spool onto the crack, watching to make
sure the solder runs into the crack but not THROUGH
it.  (Think about it.  You want it to plug the crack
but not drain into the internals of the radiator, get
the idea?)  Do NOT heat the solder, it'll just
evaporate and drip away.  Note: this is a real skill,
requiring some practice and delicacy to be good at it.
 

4.  Turn off your torch, let the radiator cool, then
repeat steps 2 and 3 till there are no more leaks.

5.  Repaint radiator (when cool) with matte-black
paint.

6.  Install freshly painted, leak-free radiator in
your Alfetta.

Now, if all you want to do is pretend you're
accomplishing something while not spending any money,
just slap some JB Weld where you think the crack is,
install the radiator and call it good.  It will almost
certainly still leak, but you'll feel good about not
letting the radiator shop diddle you out of the price
of three cases of Castrol.  Just remember to carry
water in the car with you to replace the stuff that
weeps out.  

(Special note: regardless of what it says on the
packaging, Barr's Stop-Leak will not seal cracks in
header tanks or hose connections, because they're
typically on an upward-facing section of the radiator.
 It WILL plug leaks in the radiator core tubes, and if
you've got a leak in a core tube such as you might get
when forcing a temperature sensor through the radiator
with too much vigor, it can help with that kind of
leak, as long as you don't put in so much that it
plugs things that aren't leaks, such as the rest of
the radiator core tubes or the thermostat or an engine
cooling passage.)

I've got to fix a radiator leak in the Berlina soon --
it's weeping green stuff from the seam where the
header tank is brazed/soldered onto the radiator core,
almost exactly the same place that the Junior used to
leak.  (Which is how I learned the Right Way, and also
how I learned that JB Weld does, in the immortal words
of Tommy Lee Jones, "precisely dick.")  Unless I get
cheap and just have the shop do it for $50.  I already
know how to braze, and what's more I know that it's
going to be a lot easier for the shop to stick the
radiator on a pressure jig to identify all possible
leak sources than it will be for me to put it back in
the car, fill it up, run the engine up to temperature,
and then discover another leak I didn't see before
because the first one was leaking at a lower pressure.
 So for me, the real time-saver will be letting the
shop pressure-test the radiator till they're sure it
doesn't leak.  (It's been my experience that radiator
leaks almost always come in multiples.)

It's your car and your money, do what you want.  But
fifty bucks is cheap, especially for a radiator that's
out of the car already.

--Scott Fisher
  Tualatin, Oregon
.
Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax
http://taxes.yahoo.com/

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided