Help my radiator just busted.
Banned
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 460
From: Utica ny
RE: Help my radiator just busted.
i bought a 9 dollar bottle of leakstop for my grandmothers car,,she leaked real bad and it sealed it...um id say get the most expensive bottle....what year is your vehicle? 4wd? 2wd? make?
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RE: Help my radiator just busted.
Here is a good trick that will seal it up good and its based on the general design of the radiator. A radiator is essentially a set of tubes that carry water in them with heatsinks between them to wick away heat. All these tubes run along side each other and end up at the same place. What you can do knowing this is that if one of the tubes is broke or cracked, pry away the heatsinks around the break with a pliers and completely break the tube all the through the affected area. Then close up the breaks by folding them over themselves much how you would roll up a tube of tooth paste. This will seal off that tube and force the water to go through the other tubes. Its a cheap and free temporary fix if the problem is in the tubes themselves.
RE: Help my radiator just busted.
ORIGINAL: thegr81
Yea you could do that but I wouldn't run very long like that. Also the stop leak in a bottle does more damage then helps, I would stay away from the miracle in a bottle!!
Yea you could do that but I wouldn't run very long like that. Also the stop leak in a bottle does more damage then helps, I would stay away from the miracle in a bottle!!
Gotta agree on the stop leak, yeah i will plug the hole but that stuff ends up traveling the whole system and gumms everything up (water pumps especially) and makes the whole system less efficient.
RE: Help my radiator just busted.
This all depends one where the leak is. You could braze (or solder) the hole shut if it is on an accessible part of the core itself, but if it is located on a tank, no stop leak in the world will help you as the tanks are plastic. If it is at the interface between the plastic tank and the core, then you may get lucky.
Stop leak is generally considered one of those things you do not want to use unless it is the last resort. It has a nasty habit of plugging up places where you did not want it to plug due to the quantity that must be used to effectively stop a leak.
So again, it all depends on where the leak is. Also, depends on where you are located (i.e. how cold it is outside). If it is not dropping below freezing, just keep a few gallons of water with you until you can get it repaired.
Stop leak is generally considered one of those things you do not want to use unless it is the last resort. It has a nasty habit of plugging up places where you did not want it to plug due to the quantity that must be used to effectively stop a leak.
So again, it all depends on where the leak is. Also, depends on where you are located (i.e. how cold it is outside). If it is not dropping below freezing, just keep a few gallons of water with you until you can get it repaired.
RE: Help my radiator just busted.
ORIGINAL: swartlkk
This all depends one where the leak is. You could braze (or solder) the hole shut if it is on an accessible part of the core itself, but if it is located on a tank, no stop leak in the world will help you as the tanks are plastic. If it is at the interface between the plastic tank and the core, then you may get lucky.
Stop leak is generally considered one of those things you do not want to use unless it is the last resort. It has a nasty habit of plugging up places where you did not want it to plug due to the quantity that must be used to effectively stop a leak.
So again, it all depends on where the leak is. Also, depends on where you are located (i.e. how cold it is outside). If it is not dropping below freezing, just keep a few gallons of water with you until you can get it repaired.
This all depends one where the leak is. You could braze (or solder) the hole shut if it is on an accessible part of the core itself, but if it is located on a tank, no stop leak in the world will help you as the tanks are plastic. If it is at the interface between the plastic tank and the core, then you may get lucky.
Stop leak is generally considered one of those things you do not want to use unless it is the last resort. It has a nasty habit of plugging up places where you did not want it to plug due to the quantity that must be used to effectively stop a leak.
So again, it all depends on where the leak is. Also, depends on where you are located (i.e. how cold it is outside). If it is not dropping below freezing, just keep a few gallons of water with you until you can get it repaired.