Engine Cooling

Radiator Removal

Radiator Removal

>Mechanic also commented "that the gap between the condensor and radiator was
>filled with leaves. This doesn't help efficiency of engine cooling or ac"
>Dealer offered to clean out, but it was 2-3 hrs labor to remove the radiator.
> I passed for now because the car doesn't over heat now..
>
>Does anyone have a technique for leaf removal with out taking a heat
>exchanger off the car? They clamed air pressure won't work. Why not a
>garden hose? I haven't looked at car because it is now at dealer's...

It's not 2-3 hours for the radiator removal. Could be about an hour to get it far enough apart to clean, and back.

Remove screws at top of fan housing. Remove top hoses as needed to access fan housing. You'll also have to pull the hose on the airpump filter. On your car you may have AT cooler and oil cooler lines running into radiator. If so you'll need to pull these top lines to get the fan assembly out. The fan assembly is only held by the top two screws across the front of the radiator, then just sits in indentations on the bottom. Anyway, you'll need two fairly large adjustable wrenches (or of course the proper size open end wrenches) to pull the lines from the radiator. There is a fitting that goes into the radiator tank, and you'll have to hold one of the pieces stationary while turning the other one. This is the hard part. It's tight in there, and turning the fitting can be tough. Soak it with penetrant to make it as easy as possible. Once these lines are off, you can push them out of the way to lift out the fan assembly. Pull the electric wiring first, starting from the bottom on the back of the fans, and working your way to the top. Once the harness is out of all the clips you can drape it out of the way.

With the fan assembly out, the radiator has two rubber mounted clamps, one on either side, holding it in. Just remove these, and lift the radiator straight out. It also just rests in two indentations / ledge on the bottom.

Also, I loosened the condenser mounting hardware to push it back, and the radiator with it, to get extra room to get the wrenches in and pull the cooler lines.

None of this is hard. It's time consuming if you don't have the right size wrenches, and have to go out and buy/borrow them. Otherwise, pretty straightforward, and well within the limits of the driveway mechanic.

It might be a good time to just drain the coolant and refill. There are two block plugs on the rear of the engine block, above the oil pan. They go into the side of the block and take about a 10mm or 12mm socket. You'll also want to pull the washers off with them. It's messy to drain the block so do it where it'll be easy to clean up. Then drain the bottom of the radiator at right (passenger) side with plastic screw.

You can replace the washers on the block plugs, replace hoses as necessary, belts also since it's now very easy to get to them, and replace the grommet on the drain plug if needed.

Good luck, send me a shout if any of that isn't clear.

Brian Robinson

'89 928 S4

928 Tips Home     Greg's Home