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Leaking Radiator

Z31na

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Installing yourself, genuine. Getting a mechanic to do it, aftermarket. Aftermarkets are perfectly fine most of the time. But they were a category where it was more than the repeat offenders returning them for a warranty claim. If I had to pick a brand that hasn’t given me too much grief selling and being returned it would be Adrad.
 

krusing

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I had to replace mine in my Series 2 VE last year, as it was weeping on the back at the bottom where the fan shroud sits up against the radiator,
Being that position was hard to see it weeping, with all the hardware around it,
I also found it was a leaf catcher and so could of been a partial cause it it leaking.
I purchased mine from a group in Sydney as it being a VE/VF radiator,
And it’s been fine.

There are a number of places claim the VE radiators will fit a VF, but they won’t because the cooling fan shroud is a lot different in the Series 2 VE/VF.
 
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Ron Burgundy

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I smelt mine before I saw it. No leaks on the ground etc. It's very hard to see but definitely a small leak. Must be super small as I could smell it for a few weeks but no coolant missing. Still though. Will not just stop leaking one day. I will be buying a genuine one. I think they are around $700
 

krusing

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I smelt mine before I saw it. No leaks on the ground etc. It's very hard to see but definitely a small leak. Must be super small as I could smell it for a few weeks but no coolant missing. Still though. Will not just stop leaking one day. I will be buying a genuine one. I think they are around $700

Exactly the same situation, I could smell it, but not see it.
Mine cost me around $200 delivered
 

J_D 2.0

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I had to replace mine in my Series 2 VE last year, as it was weeping on the back at the bottom where the fan shroud sits up against the radiator,
Being that position was hard to see it weeping, with all the hardware around it,
I also found it was a leaf catcher and so could of been a partial cause it it leaking.
I purchased mine from a group in Sydney as it being a VE/VF radiator,
And it’s been fine.

There are a number of places claim the VE radiators will fit a VF, but they won’t because the cooling fan shroud is a lot different in the Series 2 VE/VF.
Same deal here. Mine was leaking at the bottom for ages and I could smell the coolant but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from as there was no drips. Wasn’t until I noticed a couple of drops of coolant on the bottom splash guard that I figured out where it was coming from.

That was about 6 months after I started smelling coolant (I wasn’t too concerned with dismantling stuff to track it down as it wasn’t loosing much coolant). The lower tank must be a fairly common failure mode. Mine was leaking from the gasket around the plastic tank. I went with the full alloy radiator option to remove that failure mode altogether.
 

Skylarking

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Sad that 40 years ago, the old iron block alloy head and brass radiator vehicles of the time lasted for multiples of decades with simple maintenance. Now these new fangled alloy block, head and radiator core with grass reinforced end tanks seem to fail so easily and can’t even manage one decade in many cases.

And if they don’t fail on their own, the often fail when you need to do some work and try to disconnect a hose or similar only to have the brittle GRP fail in your hands.

In my book that’s a fail for the supposed progress we’ve made…


 

J_D 2.0

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Sad that 40 years ago, the old iron block alloy head and brass radiator vehicles of the time lasted for multiples of decades with simple maintenance. Now these new fangled alloy block, head and radiator core with grass reinforced end tanks seem to fail so easily and can’t even manage one decade in many cases.

And if they don’t fail on their own, the often fail when you need to do some work and try to disconnect a hose or similar only to have the brittle GRP fail in your hands.

In my book that’s a fail for the supposed progress we’ve made…


In theory an alloy engine with alloy heads and alloy radiator should outlast the old iron, alloy, copper combo purely based on galvanic corrosion issues but of course capitalism takes that advantage into account an nullifies it by reducing the build quality accordingly!
 

Ron Burgundy

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Bottom edge, passenger side. Pools in the bottom of the radiator and evaporates. Given it's tiny leak that explains no coolant anywhere else. Will sort our replacement in next couple weeks.

This is the longest run of no issue with the car :)

Almost 2 yrs :)

We are getting there
 

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