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So I finally got some good pics of my windshield grill foam seal doing its job keeping out debris and particularly needles from a bunch of western larch trees. (These are a lot like tamaracks in that they shed their needles every fall.)
The needles starting to pile up on the windshield. The needles have only just begun to fall.
These needles would normally have gone down under the grill and into the inlet for the HVAC. A few years ago I pulled out a good half-dozen big handfuls of these when I cleaned it all out.
The offending trees. They are pretty but damn, they are a nuisance. (Yes, that is my sailboat! )
that sounds like something i aught to do before i put the cowl back on my truck. i pulled about 2 lbs of leaves out from there, its no wonder why the original wiper motor failed
that sounds like something i aught to do before i put the cowl back on my truck. i pulled about 2 lbs of leaves out from there, its no wonder why the original wiper motor failed
I also pulled a lot of needles and small leaves (actually locust tree leaflets from the other side of the driveway) from the space on the inlet side of the AC evaporator.
Last edited by christine_208; Oct 30, 2021 at 07:54 PM.
A couple Sundays ago on the way back from deer hunting I saw a bit of steam coming up from out of my hood when I stopped for gas. Turned out I had a leak from the radiator. This is an aftermarket one from Engineered Cooling Products that I also had modified by having installed an internal oil-cooler.
My first thought was that the welds for where the oil cooler was installed were bad but it turned out to be where one or two of the horizontal flat tubes entered the drivers side tank. I tried to look at the welds from the inside with the radiator hose off but I could not see much and what I could see looked fine. One disturbing thing was that I saw one of the tubes was filled on that end. It could have been one of the troubled ones but I'm not sure. The others all looked open.
I confirmed the diagnosis with a rented cooling system pressurization kit. At full pressure 16 lbs (and even up to 18 lbs) the leak was more of a weep. Just enough to be annoying. There was no fault with the metal itself as best as I could see.
I ended up having to use two layers of JB Weld because I had not removed the coolant from the tube as I had thought and some still leaked through to cause two very small leaks in the fist layer of JB Weld. In the end I was not too upset about using so much JB Weld as I wanted to have the JB Weld that plugged the holes to be physically supported against any stresses and strains due to differential thermal expansion of the JB Weld and the Aluminum.
When I applied the JB Weld, I did my best to push it back so that it would surround from front to back the whole perimeter of where the flat tubes entered the side tank. I wanted to be thorough and not have to worry about this again. Time will tell.
After a few days of driving around town and the temperature getting up to about 185'F to 190'F it has held.
Below are pictures of the area from where the leak was. Picture showing where some coolant seemed to be originating. It didn't help that the fan spread it around. You can see some wetness on fan shroud.
One of the first pictures showing the suspected area. Note the discoloration where two of the flat tubes enters the side tank.
The flat tubes where the suspected leaks are located are identified with marks from a Sharpie. It was hard to work by leaning over to see what was going on. I was using a mirror quite a bit.
The fins where the leak was originating. I marked them with a sharpie. I had already removed some of fins. You can see the discoloration where they enter the side of the side tank.
View of leak area from below.
First layer of JB Weld. There were to very small, elongated pin-holes in the JB Weld that leaked on the underside of the flat tubes.
First pass at putting on the JB Weld. I was working with the radiator installed. If was not winter when I needed the truck, I would have removed it to get better access. As it turned out, a little bit of coolant leaked and created a new leak through the JB Weld on the underside of the flat tubes. Argh.
View from below of the first attempt/layer of JB Weld. I used a shortened bamboo skewer to get it back around the flat tubes. There are two front-to-back in this radiator.
Picture after second layer of JB Weld after roughing up the surface of the first layer. This seems to have done the trick even if it looks like a mess.
Picture from above a bit of the second layer of JB Weld over the location of the leaks. This seems to have stopped it.
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