ok well im just glad this didnt happen while the car was at school in Carbondale....or even worse, on the 6 hour drive home back to chicago. But anways....i was just out driving with my cuz to get food and on the way on at a light the coolant buzzer goes off......no panic at all since im a FD driver......you cant panic you gotta just act. So withing 2 secs of it going off i shutdown. I thought it was probably just a little low on coolant so i was going to pull over and top off.

So light turns green....i start her back up and drive maybe half a block before i could pull off the main road onto a side street where i cut it again after about 15 secs of moving. so I get my coolant from behind the seat and proceed to pop the hood when i get a face full of coolant......YUCK. I have the fan mod so i usually run the fans and the fans were blowing the coolant everywhere.

I continue to look for a split hose or sumthing because the radiator was replaced about 2 years ago with a copper stock replacement. I now realize its the same one they sell from radiatorworld.com. So i wasnt expecting a bad radiator.


then looking for leaks i squeezed the radiator hose and i coould see some squirts from the actual radiator....shieeet. Towed the car home and heres the damage:

pics:
http://www.putfile.com/fdeemantt/images/118031

vid:
http://www.zshare.net/video/230162953e16cb/


I will post the new instal pics ect ect when i get back home

 

wow bro that sucks.

 

the radiator looks like something hit it!! then exploded

 

yeah. that doesnt just happen. something impacted that area or someone didnt like you.

 

Something cut that puppy pretty good. Not a failed radiator!! Was the cut on the front or back of the radiator?

 

ok whoops i didnt realize i put that first picture up. The first pic was after i removed the leaking radiator...i had removed the airpump and i was walking over to the bench with it, i was holding it by one of the hoses that was bonded on there(or so i thought) and the pump pulled out and dropped RIGHT on the old radiator that was laying flat on the floor. Bad luck i guess for that radiator, i agree that it just had bad luck


But heres the deal, the rest of the pics are the actual damage...and the damage was done to the back part of the radiator where the fans mount.

My guess...while having the fans on something must have either coming up and into the compartment, or another foreign object that got loose or left in the bay was shot down into the radiator by the fans making the damage

in all my removal i didnt find anything that was laying around, loose, ect.

 

the car drove fine for about 25 mins of driving....so i think this is just an accident.
here are pics of the new radiator from radiatorworld.com

I basically had to get the car running quickly and i knew i could get a decent, cheap radiator, from them shipped fast (3 days)..so i got the replacement which is still i believe 30% more capacity them OEM.

And as it turns out, after my original radiator failed about 2 years ago, i just had a friends dad do all the work and he happen to put in a inexpensive all metal one...the exact same radiator i just bought

but now im less worried about overheating because i have been using the copper replacement one for the last 2 years and with the fan mods i didnt experience any kind of overheating problem.

The radiator is made by a company called CSF and my own radiator had the original CSF manufacturer sticker still on it.

I also took an idea from Bajaman to paint the fans and i think it came out pretty good, so props to him....i also painted my ebay grey strut bar red also to imitate the R1 bar and think it looks wayy better

pics:
http://www.putfile.com/fdeemantt/images/118338

 

cool, what paint did you use for the fans

 

i just used some extra spray paint i had lying around

Was the high temp engine paint (500+ degrees)........probably overkill, but i didnt have to go and buy any paint


Just did a real nice clean/degreasing and get to spraying

 

Sorry, but even if something were caught in your radiator fan blades, it would need to have enough mass and energy to slash your radiator core like that, and that wouldn't happen with the stock plastic fan blades and motors (actually, even any aftermarket units). The aluminum core tanks are pretty stout, and it looks like whatever it was that did the damage not only had some serious energy behind it, but it was pretty sharp; it looks more to me like a sharp, small blade screwdriver being stabbed into the core.

 

i def agree...although i couldnt find anything in the bay that fits the profile. Like i mentioned before....i warmed the car up before taking off on a 15 min trip to get food. I then shut her down where she sat untouched and under my watchful eye for about 25 mins. I got back in the car and proceeded to drive back home. ABout 10 mins in the ride back at a light is when i first heard the buzzer. I was listening to some music and heard no distinct "damage" noises while driving back. Just simply was at a light for about a min when i heard the buzzer, so i shut her down.


very weird.....im guessing im never REALLY going to know what or how this happened

 

where did you get that aluminum battery holder thing?

 

that my friend is a TurboJeff 51 size battery tray. Some of the best money spent allowing me to run a bigger than stock IC and i didnt have to mess with relocation....simple bolt in to the stock holes.

I also gave it a nice silver/chrome paint job