Help Needed.....

[Milky400]

Afternoon all.

Does anyone fancy helping me change my leaky radiator? took the bonnet of this morning and leaking from where the plastic side is joined to the rad.

Payment will be by way of endless tea and coffee, lunch and some beer of choice to take away. Had a look myself and don't fancy attempting it on my own.

Failing that I'll have to arrange for it to be taken to mat smith.

Cheers.

[cerberatony]

I am in Norwich if you want a trip up if leak not bad, its not hard to do. Have you got a replacement radiator

[Milky400]

Thanks for the offer tony, but it's pissing out and I don't want to risk the drive from Cambridge.

Will probably end up trying myself and seeing how it goes, changed a few rads in the past, guess it's a confidence thing.

Haven't got the rad yet as money shirt at the moment, will probably end up with an alloy rad.

[MPETT]

I've done this recently and it's easy as pie. You may need to catch a bit of coolant, but once the bonnet is off, you can lift the radiator out of the nose of the car after you remove 2 nuts from either side of the rad and disconnect the fan wires. Post pics on here and if you have any problems I'm sure either myself or others will be able to point you in the right direction.

[Milky400]

Do I need to remove the service bonnet? I have tried and the Allen bolts seem seized.

Also, I have air con, is the air con rad connected to the engine rad?

[Rich912]

You do need to remove the front bonnet. I removed mine to do a full rebuilt recently and it was a bugger to get off. One of the bolts was well and truly seized and I had to try and weld a nut on to the bolt head as it just rounded the allen head. It was awkward though with very little space to work and not wanting to put too much heat into the bolt as it's surrounded by fibre glass.

[Milky400]

Is it possible without removing it? The bolts are proper right and won't budge, worried about breaking the fibre glass around the nut...

[wongthecorrupter]

I did not remove my front bonnet when we changed mine

[Rich912]

After I had said you do need to remove the front bonnet to replace the radiator, I didn't want to fully commit to saying you could replace the radiator without removing the front bonnet unless I was sure you could complete the task, but now wongthecorupter has said its possible, I'm inclined to agree although it will be more awkward. I probably just removed mine because it was easier, not essential. Either way I hope you get it sorted. If the fibreglass around the nut was damaged whilst trying to remove the bolt it's not the end of the world, a new nut could be secured in place with an epoxy resin and finished to a reasonable standard as it's not visible with the bonnets on. Hope this helps in some way.

Richie

[Cockey]

It is actually dead easy to do. I had to do it 3 times in a couple of weeks so got pretty good at it! Two bolts at either side are the only thing holding the radiator down, and then you undo the two hose clips.

Raise the undone hoses as high as you can in order to stop as much fluid as possible being lost.

By my third go I think it was only taking around 20 mins to do, although I did remove the service bonnet.

By the way, I dropped my radiator off at a local radiator company to repair. Cost around £30 from memory, although they failed to stop the leak. So I got an exchange unit from Racing Green for about £300.

Edited by Cockey on Wednesday 25th February 09:17

[Milky400]

Is the rad connected to the air con rad? Have the drivers side out but the passenger side not pulling up!!!!

[Milky400]

Does this screw need removing.

[Cockey]

I only needed to undo two. One through the lugs on either side. There are little feet on the bottom of the radiator which sit in little holes which also hold it in place, but they are not fixed in any way.

Btw, my car doesn't have aircon.

[Milky400]

Sorted it, had to drill the self tapper out as couldn't access it. It is screwed from the reverse of the air con rad. Once that was out piss of pee really. With the radiator people for pressure testing. They have one on the shelf if it is beyond repair.