Leaking Radiator

[dassaur]

Genuine at trade price 2 yrs ago was around 380

 

[Forg]

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.

Cars last way longer these days, you can drive around in your Commode for 20 years without much concern but an HD Holden in 1985 was a unicorn …

 

[lout]

still see the odd hq on the road, 50 years old
i doubt even a vt would last 50 years

 

[Forg]

still see the odd hq on the road, 50 years old
i doubt even a vt would last 50 years

That HQ has been mollycoddled and rebuilt … VT’s are 25 years old now, and most that you see have been treated like crap (reference the stereotype of the missing fuel-filler cover) and are still running regardless!

 

[vc commodore]

Alot of older cars went to scrap about 15 years ago, when prices were sky high.....Scrappies would advertise paying a few bucks for them and people would just see dollar signs....Even scrappies would just take them to the scrap yard, dump them off, collect their cash and move on....

 

[J_D 2.0]

Cars last way longer these days, you can drive around in your Commode for 20 years without much concern but an HD Holden in 1985 was a unicorn …

Well cars do last longer than they used to from a consumer “daily driver” point of view as most vehicles will last for at least 100,000kms without any issues. The problem normally comes with the difficulty in repairing a modern vehicle once something does go wrong.

An old car from 40 years ago could nearly always be fixed with nothing but basic hand tools and simple parts. There was also the ability to fabricate your own parts in a lot of cases because the parts were so simple. Now vehicles are far more complicated and any one of a hundred parts breaking could put it off the road forever if the part is unobtainable or prohibitively expensive.

Modern computer aided design and materials science could easily make a vehicle that was easy to repair and lasted basically forever if that was the design brief but unfortunately it’s not. The name of the game is inflated repair costs both to make up for the low cost standard servicing as well as making vehicles go to the scrap yard quicker by making them uneconomical to repair.

 

[Skylarking]

Cars last way longer these days, you can drive around in your Commode for 20 years without much concern but an HD Holden in 1985 was a unicorn …

Cars of the 60’s & 70’s really suffered from metal cancer so there lives were indeed shorter than they could have been had the owner been an OCD cleaning car nutter in which case they lasted well. But regardless they we’re fully reparable with basic tools and methods.

Modern cars have had large improvements in rust prevention and paint technology so even with the average neglectful punter they lasted longer. However, a dying ECU and a few sensors usually resulted in cars going being traded and new ones bought as it was all just too hard.

With older cars, what failed over the years was easy to repair via hand tools and relatively simple fabrication methods as already mentioned. Sadly, even then many punters simply preferred to buy a new car if they could afford it and show off their perceived wealth to the neighbours. It was the dawn of designed obsolescence.

So these days we have reliability for a given time and then it’s almost like a grenade goes off… With plastics that can be engineered to look and feel great to the touch for a designated period and then literally disintegrates with an ever diminishing ability to buy replacements at reasonable prices (if at all). As time rolls on is, such trim and electronic item replacements are the real Achilles heal for enthusiasts

Some electronic modules (ECU) have regulatory issues if wanting to replace them with non factory items, not to mention at some stage it could be mandated that airbags have a used by dated defined which will obsolete cars and such legislation could be backdated I’m surprised that such discussions haven’t already started as the industry cant have another Takata sized global recall incident…

As reliable as modern cars are suppose to be, the VF with its piston slap issues, rocker arm issues, leaky radiators and plastics that get brittle in short time causing snapped solenoids within the engine bay doesn’t bode well for “reliable”… with so much plastics and electronic modules, airbags and such, it doesn’t bode well for restoration either.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

Retail on radiator is $567
Bottom plastic pipe is $41 (92237786)
Top and bottom radiator hoses $90 (92457865 & 92261483)

Holden wants $496 for 3 hours of labour - NO THANKS

 

[dassaur]

The difference between OEM and mackay/gates is the oem comes with the clamps

32/4/33.8 470 (upper - VF) gates 05-2172
32.4/39.2 385 (lower vf) gates 05-2173

Mackay also have some but dont have the parts handy. Worth double checking measurements.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

$654 for parts.

Denso USA radiator