Two bad radiators in a row?

[marktonium]

Good evening!

My truck is a 1999 4.0 Ford Ranger XLT, with about 135,000 miles on it.

Just some background on the truck, I bought it off of a friend who had just replaced the radiator (due to a coolant leak).

Fast forward a year.

A few weeks back my radiator started leaking pretty bad, enough to make a nice pool in my parking spot after work and before I'd leave in the morning. It appeared that there was a leak near the seal between the aluminum and the plastic. Coolant was dripping from the tabs on the underside of the radiator.

The leak seemed harmless enough, so I tried Bar's Stop Leak to no avail (tried the quick fix).

So, I decided to replace it, again. The parts were still under warranty, but I was an 8 hour drive to the shop that had performed the work on the truck.

Today, I leave the gym and there's my old liquid green friend, a nice pool of coolant below my truck, dripping from the exact same spot on the radiator.

I drove to AutoZone to borrow a pump to pressurize the radiator.

No leak at ~16 PSI.

Fired up the truck, fresh coolant drips from the radiator.

I checked the radiator cap, it worked (as advertized), and released at ~16 PSI.

On a hunch, I checked the work order from the last time the radiator was replaced (by the previous owner). The radiators looked almost identical, so I figured they might be the same.

Sure enough, there is a part number "431384", the same part number that I bought a few weeks ago.

Here's a link to the radiator: http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/MHT0/431384.oap?year=1999&make=Ford&model=Ranger&vi=1354799&ck=Search_radiator_1354799_3461&keyword=radiator

There's a limited lifetime warranty on the radiator, so I should be able to get a new one.

Has anyone else had a bad experience with these radiators? Is it just bad luck? Bad welds? Or is there something else that could be wrong with the cooling system that is causing a brand new radiator to leak?

Any tips/advice would be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[woodyedmiston]

Compression into the water jacket?

If you have a leak from the cylinder head gasket into the water jacket you will pressurize the system causing it to come out the overflow. If that's the case you should be noticing an overall loss of coolant.

Look carefully at the underside of the overflow tank. A crack will also cause coolant loss and happened on my 99. My 17 year old daughter never reported the leak to me & while she was driving it and just continued to add water diluting the coolant and the stock radiator plugged up from rust.

As to the particular radiator, I've had no experience with it,

Finally if you are going to replace the radiator, upgrade. Put a little more money into a copper radiator or higher capacity one from the Explorer. There is some tech stuff about swaps somewhere in the TRS library if I remember correctly.

 

[marktonium]

Thanks Woody.

Doesn't look like I have any leaks (since replacing the radiator).

Overflow resevior is in tact.

On a hunch I ended up testing the overflow resevior to see if there was any stoppage. I had tried StopLeak and some other products to try to fix the leak earlier, so thought that somehow it might've clogged things up.

I got a bike pump and an old tire stem, put the tire stem into the hose leading to the overflow resevior and pumped it up. To my suprise it was holding pressure (not good). At around 20 PSI the pressure released, I checked the resevior, and found a nice dead fat beetle floating around in the coolant. Fished him out.

I'm at around 750 miles with the new radiator. So far so good. If this one breaks I'll look into getting a better one.

Thanks again.

Mark

 

[Sasquatch_Ryda]

Core support is in good shape? I've seen a few rotten ones kill rads as they flex alot.

And plastic side tanks on aluminum rads suck just for this reason. The one in my 91 alwards drips a bit when the temps get down around freezing, once the truck is running and warms up the 'leak' goes away. Never leaves more than a couple drips in the driveway.