I think you'd have to use solvent on it and add more of the same kind of the original plastic... and I dunno what that is.
Now this is an interesting idea.... but I think the inside walls taper slightly, so I don't see it being workable. If the walls were perpendicular to each other, I'd consider this a lot more.
It would still involve cutting the crimped-together radiator apart and clamping it back together however... and at some point, one begins to see that it would be simpler overall to just weld some aluminum tanks.
No expert here on use in aircraft, but we used the welded 5052 I suggested for fuel tanks in lieu of wet wings. Although the welding and choice of material worked, it was NOT the best thought. We should have stuck with the design.
Greetings Doug, The plastic/aluminum radiators I've seen all had pretty thin aluminum crimped around the plastic tank. Welding 1/8 thick aluminum to the much thinner tank material might be a problem. I am so impressed with the zinc based aluminum solders that I would try soldering instead of welding if all I had was to weld with was an O/A torch. The initial wetting of the metal is a little fussy but it's easy to get the hang of it and it goes pretty fast then. Once you start to solder to the wetted surfaces the process is fast and easy. If you can build up regular plumbing solder on copper pipe then you have enough skill to use the aluminum solder. Eric
In my last airplane, I used a welded 5052-H32 tank. I actually did all of it myself except for the final welding. Sonny did that - then swore he'd never do another one.
It was a lot of fun. There are pictures of that going together in the photo CD download.
And, to cut Ed a tiny amount of slack, there are a lot of welded fittings used in aircraft construction; some of them may be aluminum. :)
The problem with the original tanks (on THIS radiator) is that one tank is larger than the other, because it has the transmission cooler inside. The broad sides of that larger plastic tank bulge outward from pressure, and that lifts the edge of the tank up enough to allow the larger radiator to leak.
Like I said before--you can come up with all kinds of oddball things to try, but in the end the fastest/easiest solution is to just make aluminum tanks that are thick enough and strong enough not to have the bulging problem in the first place.
--------
I'm finding pages online (from individuals and radiator shops) that say you can get new tanks put onto the core of a plastic-tank radiator. So far I have not found one place online to order such tanks though; when I search for "plastic radiator tanks" all I seem to get is the Chinese manufacturer/Alibaba sites.
And anyway, I don't see how the new plastic one could be any better than the old plastic one.
It has been quite some time since I've seen an aluminum/ABS radiator, which is what I'm assuming this is. The old ones had little fingerlike tabs holding the plastic tank onto the core flange with an o-ring to seal. If the plstic is bulging out between the fingers, maybe soldering a rod onto the fingers would prevent that. Or soldering additional fingers onto the core flange lip to hold the plastic intact better might work.
Or, build new tanks as you were saying.
Good luck, either way.
-- I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. --Duke Ellington
Any room around the radiator tank to add some external C shaped pieces to stop the bulging, bit like a mini G clamp.
I used to work at a place that made radiators for racing cars and they used Behr cores IIRC. Those were aluminium ends and core bonded together, they did weld the tanks on carefully without effecting the bonding but that was TIG, I don't think OA would work at too much heat in that case.
Nah, that ain't it. It's a stretch to say that a lot of airplanes were built "from", or "with", or "of" welded aluminum. Welds just aren't what's holding those (still unidentified) airplanes together.
Without making a big project out of it, Kent White says there is "much" aluminum gas welding on the P-51, the B-24, the B-25, and the B-17.
Now, you're saying they weren't "held together" with welds. I think you're morphing the discussion from built-with, or from, to built-with-a-structure-of.
But suit yourself. The point was that gas welding of aluminum was an effective way to fabricate a lot of aluminum pieces on aircraft before TIG came along. That was in the context of O/A welding of aluminum.
From _Airplane Welding_, J.B. Johnson, 1929:
"The [gas] welding of aluminum in aircraft construction ranks second in importance to steel. The principal application is the welding of gasoline and oil tanks. It is the preferred method of construction in the case of military aircraft and is being used successfully in commercial airplanes where the maximum pay load is the goal."
formatting link
He says exactly the same thing in another book, published in 1941.
Most of the aircraft-manufacturing training manuals of the period talked about the importance of learning to gas-weld aluminum. Welded aluminum parts were all over the place on early aircraft.
Okay, two more questions: I gather that if places can sell you replacement tanks, then the radiator cores themselves must be basically identical even from different companies? I would think they would have to be to fit in the same place on the vehicle, and they LOOK nearly identical in photos, but I never had to get this particular about radiator details before.
Also can I use rubber cord and rubber cement to make a gasket? I couldn't find any info particular to the radiator tank gaskets, but radiator hoses are usually reinforced NBR. McMaster-Carr sells the NBR cord by the foot and I would assume they would have the right kind of glue for it as well. The cord would cost me $12,,, + glue? Buying a 1/4" sheet big enough to cut two gaskets from would cost $40, and most of the rubber wouldn't be used.
Maybe you won't like this idea, or you've already ruled it out - what about just using a radiator without the Trans-cooler inside and mount an air-cooled cooler, maybe an old forklift radiator.
That runs into even more issues. The trans cooler is in the left-hand-side tank, and there is already a separate oil cooler mounted on the front left-hand side of the radiator... so the external trans cooler would have to be mounted & plumbed all the way over to the right side.
And anyway, today I went and got the metal for reproducing the original-size aluminum tanks.
I have found another reference (a video on youtube) that shows a custom shop in NZ making an aluminum radiator, and also using "2mm-thick 6061".
There was a technical service bulletin released (96-12-17) for radiator tank leaks at cold temperature, The replacement radiator (F67Z-8005-BA) had a revised seal.
I've already tried one from the dealer, and it had the same problem.
Several of the Ford engines from about 1994 to 2000 had the dual issues of leaking radiators, knocking heaters and of temperature gauges that would always slowly bob up and down. Ford says the cause of this is steam forming inside the engine, but there is no consensus on what the solution is. Even people who had all work done at dealers still couldn't get the problem fixed.
Most people you find posting on the internet can't try using the bypass kit however, since Ford hasn't offered it since sometime in 1998 or
1999. The Ford TSB papers I have copies of say that it was supposed to be available again in mid-1999,,,,,,,, and these papers I got in late
2009, and the bypass kit still isn't available, nor has it ever been since,,, whenever it became unavailable (?).
One recent forum post asking about it-
formatting link
------
I did notice while taking the new radiator tanks off that the broad walls of the bigger tank were warped to begin with.
Also, assuming that the cooland flow goes radiator-->waterpump-->engine,,, then the possible-steam-bubbles are coming out of the engine and going into the radiator tank that keeps leaking. Which could have something to do with it also. Or maybe not.
Maybe you could try putting the nose of the car way up when your refilling the coolant, give you a better chance to chase any air pockets in the block to the nearest possible outlet ( I've got a VW Vanagon that's notoriously hard to get the cooling system full, and this seems to help).
The coolant flow is radiator outlet>pump inlet>pump outlet>engine>thermostat>radiator inlet. The cap and trans oil cooler are on the outlet tank, which is the low pressure side of the radiator. It should have a 16 PSI cap
There were two bypass kits, one for the 3.0L Ranger and one for the 3.0L Taurus. A new water pump with shrouded impeller was released. A 3mm restrictor in the degas bottle supply line was also added on the Taurus.
There is also a TSB for a revised water pump on the 4.0L, 97-18-9, for thumping and/or erratic temp gauge. The part number for that pump is F7PZ-8501-AA. I believe that also had an impeller change but I can't remember the difference offhand.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.