Hey guys Chrisfix here and today I'm going to show you how to replace a radiator in your car or in your truck
I'm gonna go into detail and show you all the tips and tricks
to make this job super simple and at the end of the video after you're done watching you two will be able to replace your
Radiator at home and save yourself a ton of money now
We'll be replacing the radiator on my truck and this is actually a really good example of a radiator replacement
this is one of the more difficult ones because we have an automatic transmission and we have transmission cooler lines going into this radiator if
You have a manual transmission. You probably won't have that also, it is pretty tight in here
So we will be working in a tight area. But even though it is a little bit more difficult
It's still really simple to do this as you will find out in a few minutes now
The reason why we're replacing the radiator in my truck is because once you start her up, you could see right away
There's a crack in the radiator that's causing the coolant to shoot out and make that belt squeal loud and one of the main reasons
Why your radiator might fail like this is because the coolant was never changed or it wasn't changed at the proper interval in this case
It's supposed to be changed every three to five years but right away, if you look at this radiator cap, that doesn't look good
There's sludge there's rust and this whole system is rusted up. That's because the previous owner never changed the coolant
I was actually the first person to change the coolant in this truck and try to do a complete flush and it did help it
last longer
But eventually that radiator did leak but that's okay because we have a brand new one and here all the tools and products you need
To replace a radiator. We're going to keep it real simple. We're using all common hand tools
We have a flare nut wrench set you need a pliers
need a ratchet some sockets and
extensions and then a spill proof funnel is super helpful when we go at our new coolant to the new radiator and
Product wise we have a brand new high quality radiator with a good warranty
But that's not all I'm going to install since we have everything apart
It's a good idea for extra reliability replace your lower radiator hose your upper radiator hose your thermostat and your radiator cap
It's only a couple extra bucks more and it gives you that reliability
You're also going to need some 50/50 antifreeze
You could do straight antifreeze and mix it with distilled water. And we're going to need a little bit of transmission fluid
Make sure you choose the right type for your vehicle because we're going to be removing the transmission cooler lines now
I do want to thank Advance Auto Parts for helping support the video get me all these products so I could show you guys
How to install a radiator in your vehicle? So thank you very much
And with that said let's get started. And there's one thing I want to show you real quick super-important
You might be tempted to use one of these radiator sealers that are easy to use and they're also very inexpensive
But I highly recommend that you avoid using sealers like these unless if it's a complete
Emergency how this works is you take the radiator cap off and you would add this directly to your coolant the problem
Is that this stuff will clog the leak?
But it could also clog the passageways in your radiator or even heater core and just to give you a real-life example the previous owner
Of my del Sol used a radiator sealer and a head gasket sealer
And here's what it looks like inside pry this open with a screwdriver
If we take a look, okay under here, you can see that copper area right there
That's the head gasket sealer, and there's all this like gummy sludgy stuff here
That is a radiator sealer
And if we take a look at the top of the radiator all these slots are what allow the coolant to flow through the radiator
And then into the engine and cool the engine, so it's important that these slots stay clog-free
But you can see that sealer actually clogged up a couple of these slots
So while this stuff can work and it can seal your leaks
I highly recommend that you don't use it unless if it's emergency and instead get yourself a replacement radiator to install and I'm gonna show
You how to do that right now. So let's get started
Now the first step to do before we start draining any coolant before we start taking the old radiator out the first thing you want
To do very important is make sure you flush your cooling system now
I already did a video on how to super flush your cooling system where we went from this really dark
Sludgy coolant and we flushed it out multiple times
Until we completely clean the cooling system and I'll be sure to link this video in the description below so you can easily find it
It's important that you flush out the entire cooling system get rid of all that dirty
contaminated coolant before you install your nice new radiator
It'd be a shame to install the radiator and then run that dirty coolant through it which kind of defeats the purpose
Once your cooling system is completely flushed like it is on my truck
The next thing to do is drain the coolant but before we touch anything
Make sure your engine is cold
You don't want to open up a radiator cap with a hot engine because scalding coolant could come flying out and that wouldn't be good
So now we're gonna open up this radiator cap with a cold engine and we're gonna go under the vehicle to drain the coolant now
you're gonna find your coolant drain plug at one of the bottom corners of your radiator like this right here if you don't have a
Coolant drain plug then you can remove your lower radiator hose and let it drain from there
But in this case, we have a drain plug so I'm gonna loosen it up and we're gonna let the coolant drain it a bucket
Now as we let that drain we could do some stuff up here at the top by the engine bay
And the first thing we need to do is remove the negative cable on the battery. Now, you might be asking yourself
Why would you do that? We're just removing the radiator and the answer actually makes a lot of sense
there are airbag sensors that are typically right next to the radiator in the front for a front collision if you're removing your radiator and
You hit one of those sensors by mistake you could cause the airbag to go off and just to be safe
It's not worth the risk. All you need to do is remove the negative cable on the battery
And with that removed now, we could start removing our radiator. And since it's pretty tight up here to make it easier
I'm gonna remove our air intake to give us a lot more access
so first
Let's unscrew the hose clamp holding the intake to the throttle body and then slip the hose right off
Good now we can remove the mass airflow sensor wiring harness and unclip the intake hose from the airbox and check this out
This is what you get for letting your truck sit for two weeks. It looks like we had a chipmunk or something
Leave his food inside our airbox and that's why your intake has a filter so sorry mr. Chipmunk
You're gonna have to find a new place to store your nuts
And with all that cleaned out now we can focus on removing our radiator and it's really simple
All we have to do is remove our upper and lower radiator hoses on the other side
We have two transmission cooler lines coming in
We need to remove then we have the fan shroud and we unbolt the radiator and it'll come right out
So let's first focus on removing the upper radiator hose
So grab your pliers and clamp down onto the hose clamp and slide it off the end of the hose
Now the hardest part for removing a hose is pulling the hose off
Usually it's stuck on the end here but a trick that works really well with the hose
Twist it so it breaks free. And once the hose is twisted give it a wiggle and it should come off just like that
So we got the upper radiator hose off now. Let's get the lower radiator hose off
So this is the same process use your pliers
Clamp down on that hose clamp and slide it out of the way
And as you can see, this hose is really stuck on here. And this is where that twist trick comes in handy
I'm gonna use my pliers and just twist the hose back and forth to loosen it up and now it should slide right off
beautiful and with that lower radiator hose disconnected
Let's move to the top of the engine bay and disconnect our transmission cooler lines
We have one up here and we have one down there now to disconnect these try not to use a regular
Open-ended wrench the problem is there's only two contact points for the flare nut
So if you loosen it you could strip the flare nut
So instead use one of these flare-nut wrenches you can see it has more sides
So there's more contact that way you won't strip the flare nut
Now it's very important that you pay attention here as you loosen this flare nut
Make sure this line isn't twisting as well
This line shouldn't move sometimes what happens is the flare nut and the line here get stuck together
And as you loosen the flare nut
This line will twist and you could break it that way if that does happen just use some heat or penetrating fluid and that'll help
Separate the to good the flare nut is spinning but the line is stationary. Just what we want
And before we loosen it all the way I'm gonna get a paper towel under here because this might leak out some fluid
so just hand loosen it the rest of the way till the flare nut comes off and now we're gonna just pull this out and
Look at that. We didn't even make a mess. It's not even leaking
So with the top transmission cooler line removed now, we could go down and remove the bottom one
It's a little tight down here. There we go
And it looks like the whole fitting is spinning with the flare nut, which is another problem
You could run into luckily
All you need is a big wrench to hold the fitting in place as you loosen up the nut just like that good
So with both transmission cooler lines removed now
We need to remove the fan shroud and we'll do that by removing two bolts starting with this bolt right here
So just loosen it up with your ratchet
Just like that now head over to the other side of the fan shroud and we'll loosen the second bolt
Which is the last one holding the shroud in place?
Good now we can pull the shroud up and rest it on the cooling fan and now there's only two bolts holding our radiator in
We have one bolt on this side and one bolt on the exact opposite side
And then at the bottom here this radiator is only held in by a bracket
So once we unbolt it, we could just lift it up off the bracket
So let's go and unscrew this bolt right here
And it's nice that all these bolts are the same size. So we don't have to waste time changing sockets
Good now go back to the other side and this is the last bolt holding the radiator in and one last thing we need to
Do is just disconnect this line that goes to the coolant overflow tank
Now our radiator is ready to come out
All you have to do is give it a little wiggle and pull it up and it should come right out just like that beautiful
Now I'm going to set this on the floor right here
And with the radiator removed, there's enough clearance to remove the fan shroud good and I'll keep that down here as well
And now we could install our brand new radiator. Now before we do that. I always like to do preventative maintenance
There's a couple things on this truck that I need to do and now is the perfect time because look at all this space here
Without a radiator there's plenty of room
so what I'm gonna be doing is I'm gonna be installing a brand new belt tensioner because my belt squeaks when it gets wet and
I know the tensioner is causing a misalignment and I'm gonna be installing a brand new water pump
It's the perfect pair for installing your brand new radiator. I'm gonna do that real quick right now
so first
We need to remove the serpentine belt
Then remove the engine fan remove the idler pulley and the belt tensioner assembly
And the whole power steering Assembly has to be unbolted and moved out of the way as well as the air conditioner compressor
then we could finally get to the water pump and it's out with the old water pump then clean the gasket surface and in with
The new water pump and gasket now
Everything has to go back together starting with the power steering pump assembly and then the AC compressor then a brand new belt tensioner assembly
Then an idler pulley and engine fin and finally put the belt back on now with that preventative maintenance done
Let's get back to installing our brand new radiator
And what we're gonna do next is we're gonna go and install our upper and lower radiator hoses as well as our thermostat
So let's start with our upper radiator hose, which is this right here and it connects right down there to our thermostat housing
So just like before
Remove the clamp and move it to the top of the hose
Then twist the hose to break it free and pull it up and off now
The thermostat housing is held in by two bolts
So remove both of those that's one and that's to then remove the housing and finally the old thermostat now
We need to remove the gasket
So shove a towel in the hole so we don't get any debris in there and then use a plastic scraper to scrape the old
Gasket off good and finish it off with an embrace of sponge to get it nice and clean beautiful
With the surface cleaned and smooth we are ready to install the new thermostat
but first what I like to do is drill a small hole in the thermostat to allow the air to
Bleed out without the thermostat having to be open
So first Center punch it and then use the 1/16 inch or smaller drill bit to make a hole just like that
Perfect. And this is a little trick. That's super helpful
It's gonna make bleeding the air out of your cooling system
When we add the new coolant very easy
And you won't overheat you won't get any hot spots and the hole is small enough
It allows air through but very little coolant through so our thermostat could still function as it should so now with that drilled
Let's go install it
So first put the gasket down and then we're gonna install the thermostat you want the spring of the thermostat down into the engine
so that's gonna be sitting right there like that then put the thermostat housing on hand tighten the bolts and
Then torque them down to ten foot-pounds
Good now we can install our brand new radiator hose
remember to get your old clips off your old hose you could reuse these as long as they're not rusty or bent but instead of
Reusing this clip because these are our pain to get off sometimes I'm gonna use a stainless steel hose clamp instead
So push the hose down onto the thermostat housing and make sure you push it all the way down to the base of the housing
Right there and then we could easily tighten down the hose clamp with a nut driver make sure it's not coming off and good
Let's do the same thing for the lower radiator hose
Remove the clamp with the pliers and pull the hose off the fitting
Good now we need to get the top part off which is right up here
And this is why I prefer the stainless steel hose clamps rather than these stock ones because these are sometimes difficult to remove
Especially in tight places with all the clamps removed. This should come right off out with the old hose and in with the new
Finally tighten down the hose clamp here and up here
So with our hoses installed now we could go and install our brand new radiator
but first you want to make sure that you take everything off the old radiator and
Transplant it onto the new one in this case. It's very simple
We just have this one shroud right up here that we're gonna take off
We're gonna put on here but on some cars it's a little bit more than that
You might have an electric fan like this and then there's four bolts that are holding in the electric fan
When you unscrew those bolts this whole assembly will come out and then you could transplant that onto the new radiator
So with our radiator all set up and ready to go, let's get our fan shroud in first
And then now we could go and install our radiator
Be cautious with the new radiator because the little aluminum fins are easy to bend and damage so carefully get it in place plug in
The hose that goes to the coolant overflow tank mount the fan shroud against the radiator and bolt it in so that it's snug
Since we're here we might as well tighten down the bolt to hold the radiator in as well
And we also have the transmission cooler lines to install. So make sure you hand tighten the flare nuts first
You don't cross thread them and then snug them down with a wrench and do the same exact thing for the bottom cooler line
Since we're down here, let's attach the lower radiator hose and tighten the hose clamp good now on the other side of the radiator
Let's tighten down the bolt holding in the fan shroud and the bolt holding in the radiator
So the radiator is completely bolted in then attach the upper radiator hose and tighten the clamp down
Finally get the air filter in followed by the intake tubing and tighten down the clamp securing it to the throttle body
Also, don't forget to reconnect and tighten the negative cable on the battery
Now we can fill up the radiator with coolant
So attach the adapter that fits on your radiator and push the no-spill funnel in alright with our funnel in place
Now we need to add our coolant and always check your owner's manual and make sure you're adding the correct type of coolant in this
Case we definitely want a 50/50 mix and I'm gonna be using a universal green coolant
Now we have two options right here
we have a pre-mixed 50:50 antifreeze water mix or we have our
Concentrate where we have to add our water to get that 50/50 ratio, this is nice for convenience
But it is more expensive and this is cheaper, but you do have to mix it with your own water
And if you are mixing it with your own water, make sure you get distilled water without any minerals ed
It has to be completely pure water. Any minerals will allow electrolysis in your cooling system
And that wouldn't be good that eats away all the metals. So in this case, I'm going to be using the premix for convenience
So fill the radiator and cooling system up in this truck
My owner's manual says the cooling system should take 9.5 quarts of coolant and as the funnel empties just add more coolant
So now that our coolant isn't going down any more. Let's go inside the truck and start her up
And with the truck running we're gonna go over to the climate controls
I'm gonna turn the heat on
make sure it's on all the way and that's gonna allow the coolant to circulate through the heater core so we could get all the
air blood out now on your dashboard
The one thing you want to pay attention to is right here your temperature gauge
You just want to keep an eye on your temperature gauge here and make sure it doesn't go up to the hot
It should stabilize
right around half if it goes up to hot either don't have enough coolant or there's air in the system so every one so I'll
Just come back and check on this and as we let the engine run we have a couple of things we want to check in
The engine bay first thing you want to make sure that you keep your funnel filled with coolant all the time
What's happening is the water pump is spinning
It's sucking coolant in and hopefully forcing the air bubbles out since this is the tallest point in the cooling system
The air bubbles are going to come up and out of the cooling system through the funnel and I just want to show you something
real quick on some cars you might have a bleeder valve built into the cooling system like in this case here all you have to
Do is fill the cooling system and then crack your bleeder valve just like that
Make sure the cool comes out with no bubbles and then close it when the cooler comes out with no bubbles
that means you have led this system and that just gives you another easy way to help you get all the air out of the
cooling system
We also want to make sure that we check all the connections and fittings that we undid to make sure there's no leaks
So I'm gonna make sure every hose that we replaced every connection that we removed. There are no leaks at all
So just give that a quick inspection so far so good
One of the easiest ways to check for a leak is just to go under the vehicle and look for anything
Dripping and I don't see anything here
so as we let the engine run another thing that we want to do is check our transmission fluid since we did lose some in
The old radiator and as expected we're low on fluid. It should be filled up to here
So get a funnel and be sure to use the proper transmission fluid specified in your owners manual. I'm down about a quart
So I'm gonna be using this whole container. So let's remove the funnel and let's see what we get
Perfect. Now you can see this is filled to the proper level
So with our transmission topped off and completely full that is done and I'm taking a look at this coolant level here
And this hasn't gone down
So that means this is full and all the air is bled out
Now we could push the stopper in the funnel and remove it
We also need to remove the adapters and install our radiator cap
But we're not going to reuse the old one and instead we're gonna put in a nice new one and you always want to check
The old one is a 16 psi cap and the new one is 16 as well. Good
So now we know we have the proper cap for our system and with our radiator cap
Installed the last thing that we need to do is come over to the coolant reservoir and top this off
we don't want to fill this all the way just to the hot fill line since the engine is warm beautiful and we are
Completely done now that is how you replace your radiator. We went from this old leaking radiator
that didn't cool very well plus some old parts like the water pump the hoses and we installed a brand new CARQUEST radiator with a
Lifetime warranty one last thing you want to make sure that you put your old dirty coolant in a sealed container
So animals like your dog don't drink it because it does taste
sweet and it is boys eNOS and you could recycle coolant at your local advance auto parts store a
Mechanic shot or your town's recycle center. So there you go
Make sure you recycle your coolant and that is how you replace a radiator in your car or a truck it is that simple?
Hopefully all the tips and tricks were helpful. If it was remember to give the video a thumbs up
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For more videos just like this and as always all the tools and products are linked in the description
One more quick tip you want to make sure that you have hot heat if you don't have hot heat coming out
That means you have air in your system. You also want to go for a shakedown ride
Make sure your car isn't running hot and everything is performing properly. So I'm gonna go do that right now