I was told years ago that these restoration projects never really end and I'm slowly becoming a true believer. With less that 600 miles on the odometer the "New" radiator, that I purchased from one of my favorite vendors, cracked where the return goose neck is soldered to the tank. Just prior to this failure I had noticed that the left mounting strap had parted ways with the radiator tank top.
I dropped it off at the local radiator shop for repair and returned 3 hours later for a lesson in cheap ($331 + Shipping) radiators. The shop owner said that the radiator had some of the thinnest metal he had ever seen in the tank and that the core was basically crap. He said that he re-soldered the neck and found that there was almost no solder at all where the mounting strap was supposed to be attached to the tank. He went on to tell me that even had he removed the tank from the core and built up the inside of the neck with silver solder it wouldn't have been worth the cost as the tank metal was so thin and it would fail again in short order. Although dimensionally and aesthetically correct the radiator is basically a piece of junk.
He asked what pressure cap I was running (4 psi) and told me that even so the radiator was so flimsy that the resulting constant expansion and contraction would certainly cause another failure. The repair was $40 and since I had lost the coolant another $30 bucks or so there. So now I'm into this piece of junk for 400 bucks and change. This POS is advertised as
"high quality all copper original factory type. These new units are an excellent 3 row style and use [b]original GM tanks."[/b] Although I purchased this radiator at the beginning of my "recent" restoration (2 years ago) I nevertheless will contact the vendor next week as the radiator certainly isn't what it was billed as, and couldn't even make it 500 miles down the road before complete failure. I find it hard to believe that GM would have built something this thin "originally."
The shop owner suggested that I contact "Walker" radiators to obtain a reliable copper core radiator, but that I would have to be willing to pay $550 or so. I was too befuddled to let him know that the piece of new junk he just repaired was already pushing that figure. I stopped at the local gun shop prior to returning home and looked at some AK 47's with a mind to punch holes in this thing.
After getting home I checked
Walker Radiator Works, Inc to learn that "America's # 1 radiator" runs $745 plus shipping! Holy cow! Talking about under water and leaking cash...makes me want to buy the AK instead!
Has anyone dealt with Walker? I wonder if my Uncle Sam will bail me out for bad investments?
Don -- slightly overheated and fixing to jump into the pool to cool down.
