Radiator performance? Life expectancy?
Just thought I'd put this out to you guys, since you are all so smart!! :B Truck in sig, getting old. 393,500 K on the odometer. (244,509 miles) I noticed while towing 8000 pounds of trailer in ...
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You can flush it and free up some space, but it is old and other issues with them is they can leak, and you cant flush that issue away.
Get a new one.
I tried radiator flushes with my 30-year-old radiator, it had zero effect. I do not think anything short of acid would take the mineral deposits out of a radiator.
I even tried following the "extended flush" instructions of driving around with the stuff for a week.
Don't mix metals. If heater core is aluminum then get aluminum radiator. If copper then copper…
My OEM radiator was copper. I went with an aftermarket aluminum one because they are thermally more efficient. Even though brass has better thermal conductivity, the solder reduces that and makes the aluminum ones generally better. They are also considerably lighter.
You do have to worry about galvanic corrosion with aluminum radiators. To solve this, I installed a sacrificial zinc anode in mine.
https://www.amazon.com/Flex-lite-32060-Anode-Drain/dp/B001GR09S4
My radiator had a dedicated port for the anode so I could also have a standard drain petcock.
Steve
