Radiator leak - replace or not ?

[ESDavey]

After fitting a new rad last year, the bugger is leaking. I know that you can hole a rad in the 1st mile but it's VERY annoying. It's a small leak & only when hot. Would anyone consider Radweld or should I not be lazy & fit a new rad ?

Last rad was STD & works fine. Are alloy rads less prone to leaks / holes ? Has anyone changed the wire mess in the noise to reduce the chances of the rad being pierced ?

[5.0ltr]

I would suggest getting it fixed, sure someone more klever will be along on that soon, but from my experiance of radweld I would never give it garage room let alone get it near my P and J. Top of M62 in -20 temps, high winds in a blizzard almost white out with an overheating car caused by the radweld blockage in my rad.
Never again for me.

[Barreti]

What Bob said is so true.
You should see the gunk in a radiator after radweld has been added. I know, I've done it in an emergency and replaced the radiator after.

Get the rad fixed. It is only copper tube after all so it can be fixed relatively easily.

[Bluebottle]

Radweld works by clogging up the arteries of your Rad, on a system that is marginal in the first place it is a serious no no

Tivs are susceptable to stone chips on the nose, So I am suprised we don't here of more owners with holed rads. I have four rads in the nose of mine, so I have put a black metal grill across the apertures to protect them.

[Clippy]

You could get it re-cored if the rest of the rad is new and therefore you don't feel the need to do the whole thing.

Kempston radiators did mine for £150 last year - saves a bit on the cost of a new rad...

Giles

[TVR Beaver]

Simon... You have my sympathy.. It's not a good job taking the rad out... I've removed my rad 4 times now!.. Once because it was leaking when I got the car so took it to be re-cored.. on collection I was told he'd mended it instead of re-coring as it was in good nic.. so re-fitted to find it was still leaking so out for the second time! (this time it was re-cored okay).. then did a body lift so again it came out.. and last but not least, having had the cam replaced and the system drained.. I noticed a very small drip from the air blead screw on the top of the rad... so gave it a nip... and guess what!!.. the screw and bush came out complete.. .so out again!!.. all this in a 12 month period!
however, the good side is I can take it out in about 20 mins now and re-fit in about 40!.. as I improved alarm bolting / rad size / hose position etc as I've gone along....
Anyways.. get it out and re-cored... you may want to reduce the lug size on width before re-fitting... makes it easier.. and if you can, move the top infeed connection down 1".. makes fitting a smooth bore air intake pipe a lot easier if you ever want to do that...
One last thing.. make sure your exhaust clamp bolts are faceing backwards before you remove it.. first time I did it, they were pointing forward and pushed right into the thing as it came out!!

best of luck

[Pagey430]

I noticed the points my radiator rest on in the nose cone weren't flat and before the bolts were in place I could rock the radiator by hand on its diagonal corners. Point I'm trying to make is that if I had just tighted the two bolts down it would have caused the rad to twist to take up the shape of the car causing it to be stressed/likely to leak. Not saying all Griffs like this but hand made they are and some spacer washers were required to help in my case...