Sprung a leak from the plastic part of the radiator yesterday. What's the best replacement?  Stock oem? CSF brand? I don't want to spend 800 bucks for mishimoto. 

I would just go to a local part store and just pick up a radiator for your truck. I got one from NAPA for a fair price and works fine. I kept my OEM so I can get the tank seal replaced later on some day. 

 

460k miles and still going today.

 I believe I ordered mine from DAP, a vendor here on the site.

I, too, purchased a radiator from Napa - $220.00 at the time.   Almost four years and over 60,000 miles and still serving me well.

 

Original radiator lasted for 308,000 miles.  One of the side tank seals started a slow leak.

 

- John

Edited January 30, 20232 yr by Tractorman

Mine sprung a leak from a side tank, got the replacement from Rockauto due to they ship to the uk the radiator was rather cheap, shipping duty and Vat made it around £400 IIRC

 Not sure what that is in USD but seems like the duty and other fees add up for you fast.

8 hours ago, Doubletrouble said:

 Not sure what that is in USD but seems like the duty and other fees add up for you fast.

Not far off parity when I had to buy it, might have been  $1.10 but can't remember for sure, figure around $400 ish all in

My first American car.... 1972 Plymouth Roadrunner with a 440 it was over $1.80  to the quid (pound to you guys) so parts were close to the dollar cost so $100 part might have been £100 here with  shipping, duty and vat

It really does bug me that our government gets ££ out of me for sweet FA and it will only get worse due to the climate nutters pushing for net zero and the easiest way to force people is to tax vehicles off the road.

Sorry for the hijack.... the rockauto rad is ok and as a side note I recently ordered a right hand track rod end ( the really long one) as it was noted at MOT inspection and also a MAP sensor as it was randomly messing around, all from Rockauto, it arrived in a long right side track rod end sized box  maybe 4ft long BUT the track rod had punched one end out of the box and there was no sensor in the box as it had fell out somewhere, I sent R/A a message and fair play they sent a replacement out the very same day.... no questions... but the delivery guy did take a picture of the ripped box and he did log it as not arrived, I fully understand that #### happens...... but when it does that's the service I want

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtY1fTc/

42 minutes ago, Max Tune said:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtY1fTc/

Very good video thank you for some truth.

I ended up get a CSF brand from Amazon. Works amazing so far!

Radiators ain't exactly rocket science.

 

The only thing about OE radiators is you'll find that most are plastic header tanks and rubber gaskets. Will it leak? Eventually, it will. As for a fully full aluminum radiators will leak just the same in time. Your not going to get more cooling from a high price radiator vs chain store radiator. The physical area of the radiator is rather fixed you might get a extra row of core tubes at the most. Either way the factory radiator works very well for years most don't have heat issues unless really bad final ratio with hot injectors. That's not a radiator problem it more about a poorly set up truck. 

 

Another tidbit if you read up on thermal efficiency you'll find that running a hotter thermostat will reduce the amount of energy wasted into to the cooling jacket. Why? Because heat is attracted to cold and the greater the offset of temperature between the cylinder and the coolant more energy will be wasted into to the cooling jacket. This is why I typically just use the 190*F thermostat vs a 180*F thermostat which I did study on my long hauls that the 190*F gave better MPG's. Crazier yet grab a 200*F thermostat from a 4th Gen and run that. It will improve that just a little bit more. 

 

Yeah I'm rambling again... 

Just rambling of a mad man. Cummins fever is real. No Vax will save you. All we have is our support groups to try and tame the symptoms and keep us from losing control of our wallets.