Hello again, radiator lovers!

Have you ever wondered:  what is an auto radiator?  If so, this is a technical but very understandable video about what a radiator does and how an automobile radiator is put together in the factory.  I was thrilled that at last there is a female narrator for a radiator video!  Unfortunately, I was quickly put off by the way she mispronounced the very basic and important word, “radiator.”  She said rad-iator (as in “rad” when it refers to something that is really cool, or “rad” as in radish.)  I’ve never heard it pronounced this way so even though she had a nice voice, after she did this eight times, I was led to believe she was reading a script and didn’t have a clue about what she was saying regarding manufacturing radiators.  Oh well – progress of sorts, I suppose.

As to the video itself, if you want a simple explanation about how your car’s cooling system is put together and works, this video will probably do the trick for you.  It shows what a radiator manufacturer does in order to produce quality radiators from start to finish, all with great up-close shots that make what the narrator-gal says easy to follow.  Explaining the problem of engine-generated heat and the use of radiator fluids composed of a mixture of water and anti-freeze to deal with the heating problem, we are taken along a journey through the many automated (producing shapes, thicknesses, etc.)  and manual processes (welding, hammering) done in order to produce radiator tubes from paper thin brass and cooling fins, which are stacked together to make up the radiator’s body.  The materials used throughout a radiator are described, along with why they work for each particular need.  For instance, even the final coat of paint is a heat-resistant blend.  Great background material and this video also gives you an appreciation of the thought and complexity that go into making a radiator and I am going to appreciate mine a whole lot more, as a result.

- Susie

Hello video watchers!

Have you ever wondered what it takes to make a radiator like the one in your car? Well, car radiators don’t drop out of the skies or grow on trees, as this video about how to manufacture radiator pieces makes perfectly obvious.

When I think of a new radiator, I think of the finished products stacked in a radiator warehouse like discount dealer Radiator.com. Neat little rectangular things made to slip into their precise places near the engine in order to keep it cool.

This video takes us back a little earlier in the lifecycle of a Radiator to a plant where four workmen are busy cutting, twirling things, measuring pieces and machining a bunch of what look like giant sections of Radiators, hopefully soon to become more recognizable auto car radiators like the ones that I am familiar with. No plastic radiators here. These guys are busy with the makings of a metal radiator, if the forklift is any indication of the tremendous weight of these pieces.

And then there is the two-times taller than the men who are working height of the finished products. This working warehouse is huge, busy and efficient looking. The guys seem to be taking great pains to turn out precise products and the music (there are no words in this video) has a sort of driving, no-nonsense quality that makes you want to say, “Yeah, guys! You go to it!” Thanks for this video and music interlude. It will help me to appreciate the little (by comparison) radiator under my Eclipse’s hood.

– Ciao, Susie

Hello brave and fearless video fans (and happy tax day).

How many of you have looked under an engine hood and swallowed hard at the tangled mess before you?  I am going to assume for the sake of argument that it is most of you.  If you dream of doing your own car restoration, car repair, or you just want to do your own car care, this video will help you to breathe easier.  This video makes the initial peek under-the-hood  manageable and it does so in a way that is so simple I should have thought of it myself!

The main objective of this particular video is a do it yourself remove radiator session, which will include radiator draining to get the auto car radiator fluid out so you can remove the empty radiator and get to the engine.  (And following the video’s simple directions will help you when it is time to install radiator again later.)

The video demonstrates some of pre-work that needs to be done before pulling the radiator out in order to work on the engine.  The radiator, and lots of its neighbors and buddies, need to get out of the way before you do the engine work.  First, we see how to start draining the radiator and while that is taking place, we are advised to get out the car’s repair manual – that thing in the glove compartment that I have long had a lack of appreciation for.

We are warned that the engine schematic is NOT likely to match the actual “real world mess” under the hood, but we are told that all we need to do is to find one hose, wire or piece at a time.  Disconnect it, and label it clearly with a piece of tape, noting what it is, where it is in the repair manual drawing  and what it has been disconnected from.  Other great suggestions?  Video tape as you go along for when you need to reassemble.  Take photos for the same reason.

– Best of luck, Susie

Blog readers,

Be sure to watch this clip if you want to see a vivid demonstration of why a radiator is so important in a car rally. Besides that, the racing shots in this video are really fun to watch! Red Bull rally team director, Armin, doesn’t mince words as he demonstrates this point and he does it with an endearing Swedish accent. He makes it clear that if you want to get your rally car out into the elements – dirt, snow, whatever – and win the race, the main thing you need to avoid is an overheating radiator because it is the most important thing under the hood for stopping an overheating engine.

It is the radiator based cooling system that lets you plow through snow banks and up dirt mountains, just as his team car does in a few choice video shots. Armin does more than tell the viewer to avoid a hot engine. He holds an aluminum radiator close enough to the camera so we can see it and he explains the role of the radiator fins in the cooling process that takes in the hot water in one side of the radiator and cools it before it exits out the other side, which guarantees a cool engine for the race.

Even a little hole in radiator can ruin the chances for victory and out in the rally, when there is no time to replace radiator parts, he recommends plugging a radiator hole with anything that happens to be available, even a piece of chewing gum, so you can finish the race. Now, that is my kind of temporary fix!

- Susie

Greetings repair buddies.

It’s time to learn another car part repair technique and today we will watch a radiator repair known as the refill radiator task. Yes, it’s time to flush the radiator out, readers, and the man in this video has such a calm voice I didn’t even feel a twinge of panic when he talked about things like air bubbles and floor heaters. After all, it’s just your average radiator maintenance task, right? Nothing dangerous- just a radiator flush. The whole thing looked a little weird to me but he was taking it in stride and I decided to do the same. I mean, after all. How much do you think they would charge you to do this at an auto shop? I can handle it!

Step one, start the engine. I can do that.

Step 2, put the floor heater on (the floor heater ONLY , he warns, and I tremble to imagine why!) and then you can take the lids off the radiator. (Does he mean radiator caps?)

Step 3 (remember, I am paraphrasing all of this and you should watch it at least once for yourself before attempting a flush) use a funnel and run water into the radiator.

That is pretty much it. Could probably save me $75 if I did this myself, which means I can pick up the cute strappy pair of sandles I saw at Macy’s a few days ago. Oh yes, we aren’t quite done yet. The guy says he ran water for about 10 minutes but the air bubbles in radiator still seemed to still be burping (my word.) That is a bad thing and he warns to keep the flush going until the water in radiator routine gets all the bubbles out and we’re off to a clean start.

Greetings, friends. In this video I learned how to approach the removal of my car’s radiator hoses, which is (I suppose) something you need to do before you begin a new radiator installation. That in itself is more than I learn about cars on most days so I am completely satisfied just 5 seconds into the clip.

I think the guy talking is named Danny and that he is the same auto repair beginner that I saw in another video recently on this site. At least, he looks familiar, which is a start. His claim to fame is that he follows directions from a book. However, he showed us how to pull out and replace a headlight bulb in the other clip, which makes me wonder if he is as “dumb” as he claims. At any rate, he now shows us where is the radiator hose and how do we remove radiator hoses before doing a radiator repair. If I had any doubts about Danny in that earlier video clip- clean cut, polite, and claiming blissful ignorance – I am past it now because but he truly looks puzzled as he refers from the book to the engine and back again, scratching his head.

Finally, he points to a hose and announces that it is one of two hoses that we need to disconnect. He calls it the upper hose and he says so with authority. Yeah, Danny, I think to myself. Then he admits that he doesn’t know where the other hose is and I begin to wonder if he will ever remove two radiator hoses in my lifetime. He mentions that the errant hose is somewhere on the “bottom.” Stay tuned. The next video clip I trip across with Danny is bound to wrap up this exciting auto repair and radiator removal escapade. Still, I have to wonder. If Danny is the do it yourself radiator learner that he claims to be, how DID he know that the other hose is somewhere on the bottom and not off to the side? Does he know more than he is telling us?

- Susie

Welcome back, readers and video watchers!

I have a simple question for you: What are friends for? Giving you good advice for one thing, but if your friends suggest using Radiator sealant, run the other way! This is a very short (and angry) video but if you’ve ever thought about using a radiator sealant, you should pay attention to it. Seeing what sealant did to this radiator should stop you dead in your tracks. Why would you consider using this kind of product when the dangers of using a radiator sealant far outweigh the benefits?

I suppose that a sealant could sound appealing if you have a radiator, block or cylinder head leak and you want to delay a radiator repair, or buying a used radiator or a new radiator to handle the problem. At a time like this, a sealant has just the kind of properties that you think you need. When you apply a sealant, it changes state and becomes hard, plugging up the nasty little crack or leak that is making your life miserable.

In other words, it closes that small opening and stops the radiator coolant leak, which meets your immediate goal. The problem comes when the sealant does more than you bargained for and works its ways through your radiator, resulting in the kind of completely clogged radiator that you see in this video. Sealant can even make its way to your heater core and ruin your auto’s heating system. Yes, it seals that leak, but it can do a lot of other damage, too, as this video graphically illustrates.

The bottom line? Unless you want your radiator clogged for good, pull out that leaky radiator and get it replaced or repaired the right way. With the lowest cost radiators on the market and a lifetime guarantee, a visit to radiator.com can prove to be far more cost effective than this foolish, temporary solution.

- Susie

Hello again, auto repair lovers and seekers of automobile truth! I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this video will give you free auto repair tips in any large sense. It is actually just an excerpt from a larger video, but the one piece of advice that it does illustrate, how to replace car headlight, is actually quite helpful if you’ve never tried to do this task before.

Car parts can be hard to find under the hood, or at least they are for me since I am still pretty much of an auto repair beginner. Unless you know what you’re looking for, the whole thing can be quite daunting but Danny shows us the area where the headlight resides and what the little devils look like. He also demonstrates that a quarter turn clockwise does the trick for removing an old bulb, hopefully eliminating a lot of counter-productive twisting and turning that could damage it or the headlight housing.

If you are trying to cultivate a do it yourself car repair mentality like I am, every little task you can master really helps. My advice is to focus on how Danny gets the little headlight removed quickly and easily because this video doesn’t get to how to replace taillights. Nor, do you ever get to find out why you needed to lay out those car part repair tools – a Phillips head screw driver, a standards head screwdriver and a hand towel.

As for the towel, I didn’t even break a fingernail doing this, let alone get grimy. I’ve got to search around for the second part of this lesson so see why you need those tools, but in the meantime, my quest to maintain the auto parts that are under my car’s hood all by myself has moved another step ahead!

– Susie

Goodness gracious auto repair lovers! Here’s a radiator video that you can do without. Its only redeeming factor is that it sends a clear message that some people just shouldn’t own cars – even clunkers like this car. The two guys in the video don’t have half a brain between them. I’m not sure who they are, but someone should take away their video camera along with their wreck of a car. As a viewer, you already have a suspicion that the car is in the shape it is in thanks to their idiocy. They certainly aren’t doing a radiator repair. I doubt that they could even find the radiator under the hood.

It starts out with the driver (a loose description of the guy sitting at the steering wheel) gunning the engine so hard, it stops turning over at all. Then, we have to watch him repeatedly jam the key in the ignition as the whole frame convulses in its death-throes. He has no idea what he is doing to his auto car radiator but the next things we see is the passenger who has the hood open. He is banging at the radiator with some kind of pliers, hopping back at each swing from the radiator smoking. If it isn’t clear already, he ought to know by now that he needs a new radiator. He succeeds in knocking off the radiator cap without burning himself which is pretty amazing with the engine smoking at this point. Boiling water spurts out and he jumps back, laughing like a maniac.

So there it is – everything not to do when you have car trouble. And besides that, if you ever see one of these guys walking down the street (they couldn’t possibly be driving) move to the other side of the street because they could be dangerous!

- Susie

Hello again, auto repair lovers and those of you who are just plain curious about what’s under the hood.  If you need a pat on the back before you begin a do it yourself radiator replacement project, this video is a great place to start.  You won’t learn anything to help you with the actual task, but it can help to psych you up as you get ready to tackle the job.

The gentleman in this video – Chris – is about to pull out an old radiator and put a new one into his 1998 Honda Civic.  For someone who doesn’t know what he is doing, he has a lot more confidence than I would have.  I have no idea where his cavalier attitude comes from because he freely admits that he isn’t a mechanic and that he is going to rely on his auto repair book to guide him through the process.  This is certainly not the way I would go about it for the first time, but I have to admire his enthusiasm.  I were being filmed for this radiator video about an installation, I’d want someone by my side to point here and there and give me some direction.   Faced with a leaky radiator under his hood and a new Honda Civic Radiator replacement by his side, Chris experiences none of my qualms as he prepares to launch forth following the install radiator chapter, which I hope comes equipped with a few good photos.

I can only wish Chris the best of luck.  I think I’d rather learn live from a friend – or anyone else willing to guide me through removing a leaky and on-its-way-out radiator, let alone installing a new radiator.  But as I said in the beginning, the attitude that Chris has might be contagious so check this out before you get started – particularly if you are a radiator novice.

- Susie