Re: cooling system flush

Posted by Owen_Dyneto On 2016/10/27 12:21:11

Just on the general topic of auto radiators, my local club went last night to visit one of the very last of the radiator repair shops in the area. Twenty-five or so years ago there were probably 20 such shops within a 20 mile radius, now just one as radiators have become replacement items, no longer practical to repair. This shop, in our county seat (Hackensack, NJ) does recores for hobbyists, and also does off-site work such as radiator repair for emergency diesel/generator sets at hospitals and the like.

One thing I found interesting that I honestly had never thought much about was why sometimes folks who get a 4-row or 3-row radiator and find it does not cool any better than the 3 or 2-row it replaced, is that there is a lot more to it than the number of rows. He showed us several examples, most tubes in fin-and-tube radiators are 1/2 length but the spacing can vary, cheaper cores have tubes on 1/2 or 9/16 centers but better quality (and more expensive) cores will have them on 3/8 centers - hence more tubes per row and more cooling capacity. So it's the number of tubes we should be concerned with, not simply the number of rows. Also he showed various fin counts on the tubes, from 8 or 9 fins per inch to 12 or more on higher cost cores - again more heat exchange capacity with the higher fin count. Another comment of some concern from him, the number of companies that actually make replacement brass cores has been and continues to decrease to now, just a few. The major reason car makers went to aluminum cores with plastic tanks was not because they performed better or were cheaper (which they probably were), but rather most significantly the reduction in weight was a significant part of their programs to meet the corporate average fuel economy requirements.