Radiator End Tank Replacement?

[Supercharged111]

I guess this goes here? Right before we left for MI, the dually decided to crack the end tank. Lovely. I had 2 suitable spares at my hangar, so I cleaned and installed the crustier of the 2 and it worked great until we were headed back. Same crack in the exact same place.

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Made it another 1000 miles back without any trouble. I didn't even need to add water. I figured it would have leaked more, but it was intermittent at worst. I see these videos of folks plastic welding their tanks, but it's my belief that these tanks are old and brittle and I'd just as soon replace them. Rockauto didn't turn anything up, anyone here know where to look? Back around 2013 I had the same tank replaced by a local shop on my 1500 and that radiator lives to this day so I'm pretty well sold on it as a concept. I just can't seem to find the parts. My Google fu must be slipping.

 

[Orpedcrow]

These look like Chevy tanks (?)

Car-parts link

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[Schurkey]

I've never known anyone outside of a radiator-shop employee replacing their own radiator tank.

"Truly Awesome", indeed.

 

[Orpedcrow]

The last radiator shop I saw, was across the street from a tv repair shop…

 

[RichLo]

The last radiator shop I saw, was across the street from a tv repair shop…

There's only 1 Magneto repair shop that I know of still in the US and he happens to be about an hour drive from me (Rebuiltmags.com) and he is trying to sell his business because of his age. Its sad to see quality specialized repair shops disappear. I'm sure there are plenty of members that remember their local alternator repair shop in town.

 

[Orpedcrow]

There's only 1 Magneto repair shop that I know of still in the US and he happens to be about an hour drive from me (Rebuiltmags.com) and he is trying to sell his business because of his age. Its sad to see quality specialized repair shops disappear. I'm sure there are plenty of members that remember their local alternator repair shop in town.

It is really sad to see entire specialties just completely dying due to cheap overseas production.

I called a couple of industrial starter/generator shops looking for someone to rebuild an old delco remy unit for a restoration we’re working on, they (both) said they haven’t been able to get delco remy parts for at least 5 years and refused to use any Chinese junk.

 

[454cid]

I've both paid to have a tank replaced and built new radiators for new vehicles. Unless you do it for yourself, as a let's see project, I don't think it's worth it. The tank I had replaced had the oil cooler go out of it a couple of years later, which made the repair expensive for the length of time.

When the radiators are built, all the tabs go down together. Furthermore, I'd suspect that they work harden.

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

When I needed to replace the radiator in the Burb, in March 2018, the driver's side tank had cracked. Been that way for a while, leaking slightly, but one day it got a lot worse. Took it to a local radiator shop. They could replace the tank for around half of what it would cost to replace the whole radiator. Since the radiator was probably the original one, I figured the rest of it might fail if I just replaced the tank. So I bit the bullet and bought a new radiator. 7 years later,I think it's still in good condition (there's a leak in the system but I don't believe it's there).

 

[GoToGuy]

Without the proper tools, your taking a chance, with the odds again you.
Does yours have the big block radiator, it's about two inches taller, than all the sizes.
When the drain fitting broke, I went with same dimensions , except from a 3500 so it had a 4 tube stack. Instead of 2 tube. It never gets over 200, climbing the pass, 106° F. On the way home AC full blast, 75 mph. Before , and before I broke the drain, same drive would have been closer to 210.
The new TYC brand has worked good for me. I can rebuild, restore many things, but the new style radiators, nope.

 

[Supercharged111]

Well I have 2 radiators with the same crack and the one in my 1500 has plier bite marks, so he probably did it with channelocks. @Orpedcrow how did you pull those part numbers? I searched by year/make/model on that site a couple different ways and got nowhere. And yes, this is the 34x19 tall double thick big boy radiator.