Since when did car companies start to use Plastic for the top and bottom sections of radiators ?

#1 sons car overheated and judging by the coolant leakage evidence it looked like the top hose was failing, so I dropped off at Kragen, picked up a new hose and set about fixing it.

When I undid the clip on the top hose and pulled a section of the top of the radiator came away in my hand !

A new radiator is $200....

Guess what i am going to be replacing on thurday !

 

My 91 Plymouth had plastic end tanks on the factory radiator but it was replaced at some point with an all aluminum one. since that car was designed in '89 I guess the answer to your question is at least 17 years ago.

 

Its massively annoying - The radiator also contains a small section devoted to cooling the trans fluid too - so the 'simple' job of replacing the radiator is going to be horrible - I need to find a mechanic in OC that will do this for me, I have no time / energy to set about this task.....

 

BMW (Mini's parent company) started to use plastic endcaps at least from the 91 production start of the E36 3 Series, and continues to do so across its range of cars. This has resulted in a healthy market for all aluminum replacements. I can't tell you how many E36 radiators I've seen break at the track.

Neil
05 MCS
96 M3

 

The first one that I saw was on my 87 Toyota FX16. I was quite shocked at the time. Now more & more things on cars are becoming plastic. Not sure it's a good thing.

 

Well, it's a good thing for someone. As CAFE requirement go higher, manufacturers have to do something to get the numbers up, and weight savings is one of the easier methods. Plastic weighs less than aluminum.
And is probably cheaper too. Then there is the higher sales of replacement parts.
See, someone is liking this!

 

My wife's '95 Toyota Paseo had plastic endcaps on the radiator, and the replacement was a LOT more than $200.
I've also heard of a lot of Mercedes radiators where the plastic pipe that connects the upper radiator hose to the radiator has snapped off with minimal/no force. Thankfully mine's too old (1972) to have such an arrangement.

 

Thats pretty much what happened to me - I undid the top hose and pullled it to break the seal and it snapped a section of the end-cap off !

I managed to remove it totally today, found a crack in the bottom cap too - so it is probably not a terrible thing to be replacing it - still cannot get over how light it is - amazing considering the size of it.

 

Wow, I'm just thankful these things weren't around for Colin Chapman to stick in my Europa . It's bad enough to have a baffle soldered inside the radiator to direct flow through the core...too bad it tends to rust and allow coolant to bypass the radiator .

I guess the phrase "they don't build 'em like they used to" comes to mind.

 

Plastic radiators were in use by VW when i purchased a new one in 1984. If you contact businesses like 1-800 Radiators, you can sometimes get a metal replacement.

 

My '81 Renault 18i had a plastic radiator neck which of course cracked at around 85K miles. I just kept epoxing it until I traded it in.

 

Yep, my 78 Scirocco had plastic end tanks on it. And yes I had to replace it twice in the 25 years I owned it.

 

Yep, plastic end tanks are not uncommon, nor is a tranny cooler built into one of the end tanks. It helps eliminate some clutter in the engine bay.

You could always just bypass the factory cooler and put a remote mount on the front of the new radiator.

 

My 81 DeLorean had plastic end tanks too. It lasted for over 25 years before a seal broke down and started a slow leak 4 months ago. Depending on how well they are made, they can have a good long life too them. I could have replaced mine with a NOS unit, but starting with 25 year old plastic didn't sound too appealing, so I now have an all brass unit. Assuming I flush the coolant regularly to keep it from clogging up, the new unit should last as long as the car.

 

Well I finally got it done, it was not a difficult job really, just a vrey painfull one. As I was pulling the fan asemembly out - as shown in the Hayne manual, one of the (rather sharp) fan blades rotated and cut/trapped my finger - luckily ? my nail prevented too much damage, but it bled for a very long time.

New Rad went in with minimal issues, the trans cooler issue was a non-event and the whole thing is working fine now.

However, I am NOT going to work on that car again......