All Aluminum Radiator

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L31MaxExpress

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Hopefully this one last alot longer than the TYC one that exploded after a short time. I installed it and ran it yesterday evening in 95°F temps. It took over an hour for most of the air bubbles to dissapear out of my bleeder funnel. I ran the heater for the first 30 minutes, then switched to ac and let it heat soak. Trapped air can really hurt the cooling efficiency of the system and because of that, I highly suggest using the Lisle funnel I have and jacking the nose up while purging air out of the system. I had the front tires 6" off the ground and jack stands on the frame. I took some temp readings on both the cooling system and the transmission after it had run for over 1 hour. It has a 170°F thermostat.

Dash gauge
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Thermostat housing
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Hot side of radiator. Thermostat was cycling a bit so the hot side was not as hot as the thermostat housing.
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Cold side of radiator
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L31MaxExpress

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Now transmission temps. Factory in-radiator to a M7B. In reality going down the road the fluid coming out of the transmission will be hotter and the radiator "cold" side will be cooler.

At the inlet of the radiator cooler.
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At the inlet of the auxiliary cooler. Could not get to the lower radiator fitting because the spinning finger chopper was only inches away.

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Outlet of the auxiliary cooler.
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L31MaxExpress

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This was the radiator I ended up using. Its hard to find a van specific radiator with a decent sized core. As I have come to find out, I believe the 34" wide 454/8.1 dual core van specific radiator with the extended fill neck is out of production and nobody has one.

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L31MaxExpress

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This was 30 minutes into running it. Notice how much air is still working its way out of the system.

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Could not resist catching the sound of the 383 idling with the ac on. Idling at 850 rpm. Steady and smooth with a nice exhaust note.

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L31MaxExpress

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FWIW, been running heavy duty truck coolant for some time now. The old 350 ran it, the G35 has it as does the Pathfinder. It protects aluminum and cast iron. It has a water pump protection additive as well as some additive to help with heat transfer to help prevent hot spots. The stuff works phenominally well transfering heat and it is good for 10 years or 1,000,000 miles on road.

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Jeepwalker

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Just to verify, is this your van that you previously had two electric fans that wouldn't cool very well? Just trying to clarify what vehicle you're referring to. What year?

I like your idea of raising the front end to bleed the engine ..and using a trans cooler (in your climate) is a good idea too.

Ideally you don't want an engine to run too cool as I'm sure you know. 180 is a good temp if that's what you're seeing most of the time. See how it is in the winter. The cooler ya go the more engine wear. 160 or below will exerbate cylinder wear and reduce engine life. Ford once published a temperature/wear curve that was pretty eye-catching. You can probably google it.

The other thing to take note of now is your pH. Mixing cast iron, copper and Aluminum means you have a narrow window where coolant pH keeps all the metals 'happy'. You probably don't have copper anymore though. But that's what is nice about copper is it's kiind of a noble metal and a wider pH tolerance. I used to be in the boiler business and when building owners/managers would get 'sold' on a cheap boiler with an aluminum heat exchanger, they'd last about 3 years before the heat exchanger would corrode and crap out (bc they weren't used to maintaining the right 'narrow' pH).

Iron and copper have a wide pH range. Add in thin aluminum and it makes a real nice anode! LOL. That's what causes a lot of heater cores to crap out. And when you read of guys who's new heater core started leaking in 2 years, was it the old anti-freeze (high pH) they put back in, which killed it? Remember the scale is logarithmic, so a little difference means a lot more corrosivity. I once had a customer who had an entire elementary school full of heat exchangers (in about every room), they literally 'murdered' because their pH was like 1000 times off! They wouldn't last 2 years. That was due to neglect. Just something to be aware of. It would be nice if antifreeze was pH blanaced. When I tested premixed anti-freeze it was close to or above 10 as I recall. Low to mid 9's would be more ideal. I didn't check it at, say, hot temps though.

See the associated chart. I check/adjust my vehicle pH every couple years. Add a pinch of sodium hydroxide (red-devil drain cleaner) or lime juice as needed to keep in the right range. I have to adjust my house boiler pH too, so it's not that difficult to do. Those paper pH strips are terrible (IMO). These gauges seem to work preally well. The two I have are spot on ..as referenced to a verified pH buffer mix and paper strips. https://www.ebay.com/itm/333591716983


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L31MaxExpress

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Just to verify, is this your van that you previously had two electric fans that wouldn't cool very well? Just trying to clarify what vehicle you're referring to. What year?

I like your idea of raising the front end to bleed the engine ..and using a trans cooler (in your climate) is a good idea too.

Ideally you don't want an engine to run too cool as I'm sure you know. 180 is a good temp if that's what you're seeing most of the time. See how it is in the winter. The cooler ya go the more engine wear. 160 or below will exerbate cylinder wear and reduce engine life. Ford once published a temperature/wear curve that was pretty eye-catching. You can probably google it.

The other thing to take note of now is your pH. Mixing cast iron, copper and Aluminum means you have a narrow window where coolant pH keeps all the metals 'happy'. You probably don't have copper anymore though. But that's what is nice about copper is it's kiind of a noble metal and a wider pH tolerance. I used to be in the boiler business and when building owners/managers would get 'sold' on a cheap boiler with an aluminum heat exchanger, they'd last about 3 years before the heat exchanger would corrode and crap out (bc they weren't used to maintaining the right 'narrow' pH).

Iron and copper have a wide pH range. Add in thin aluminum and it makes a real nice anode! LOL. That's what causes a lot of heater cores to crap out. And when you read of guys who's new heater core started leaking in 2 years, was it the old anti-freeze (high pH) they put back in, which killed it? Remember the scale is logarithmic, so a little difference means a lot more corrosivity. I once had a customer who had an entire elementary school full of heat exchangers (in about every room), they literally 'murdered' because their pH was like 1000 times off! They wouldn't last 2 years. That was due to neglect. Just something to be aware of. It would be nice if antifreeze was pH blanaced. When I tested premixed anti-freeze it was close to or above 10 as I recall. Low to mid 9's would be more ideal. I didn't check it at, say, hot temps though.

See the associated chart. I check/adjust my vehicle pH every couple years. Add a pinch of sodium hydroxide (red-devil drain cleaner) or lime juice as needed to keep in the right range. I have to adjust my house boiler pH too, so it's not that difficult to do. Those paper pH strips are terrible (IMO). These gauges seem to work preally well. The two I have are spot on ..as referenced to a verified pH buffer mix and paper strips. https://www.ebay.com/itm/333591716983


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Same vehicle as the dual electric fan. It had a KKS 34x19 dual core in it with the electric fans. That radiator is going into my 99 Tahoe.

The 170F stat ran my old 350 about 176-182F year round.
 
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