This sucks!

-
G

Gordon340

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2005
Messages
72
Reaction score
2
We put a nice new radiator in the Dart the first of the week. Got all the hoses and such hooked up and got to the fill er up point.

At our shop, we vacuum fill our cooling systems -- gets all the air out and you don't have to worry about air pockets. I ran the 67 cooling system through my mind -- new everything including heater core. Saw no problem with vacuum hurting any old or almost broken peices -- hooked up the vacuum and walked off to get the anti-freeze. As I was reaching for the first gallon, I heard two "pops". Walked back to the car and the entire top of my nice new Year One radaitor was sucked in! Crap!!

Filled the car with anti-freeze and put the pressure tester on the radiator and pumped it up to about 16 pounds -- the top poped right back out! These VERY expensive radiators are made with some very thin brass. Beware.

Brian
 
Wow, scarey;
why vacum fill a system, that has the radiator cap as the highest point though?


Is that supposed to be faster, than the old way, {I use}
of; loosen the heater hose, and fill the radiator, till coolant comes out the upper heater hose, reattach the heater hose, and finish filling the system.

Start the vehicle till the t'stat opens, check the level, and let kool,
recheck the coolant a final time.

Glad your radiator is OK.
 
Why use vacuum? I supose it really isn't needed on a system like mine -- fairly straight forward. We are a general repair shop and this is quite necessary on late model stuff. It is quick and you don't have to burp it or worry about air in the heater core or whatever. Just seemed like the thing to do. :) I wasn't ready to fire it off yet and the entire system was bone dry (fresh rebuild), this would get some good rust additives into the block and I thought it would just work better that way. But I was wrong. :-(

However, after I got the cooling system filled, I couldn't resist the urge to start it and hear it run -- so we fired it off -- so much for my well laid out plans. With no exhaust system past the manifolds, I didn't run it too long (did not want to melt anything in the engine area). This was why I wanted to wait till the exhaust was put on to start it -- then I could leave it running long enough to make sure the lifters and cam broke in well. It is a very mild Mopar cam (numbers are simular to stock 340 cam) with standard hi-po springs -- I don't expect any real problems with the cam lobes anyway.

Brian
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top