radiator replacement

[trouttrooper]

In the interest of passing on information I thought I'd give a quick writeup on how I replaced my radiator today. I didn't exactly take notes as I went so I may be off by a bolt or two here and there in my description.

I discovered a couple days ago that the entire top of my radiator was leaking where the plastic top is connected to the metal portion of the radiator. Not sure what was the cause for it to do it all of a sudden, but at 171,000 miles I figured it wouldn't hurt to put a new one in.

The removal process took me about 30 minutes. All in all wasn't too bad. Most instructions I've seen says to remove the fan shroud which involves disconnecting the fan etc. I was able to do this project without taking this step.

1. remove lower hose from radiator using channel locks to manipulate the spring clamp and let it start draining
2. disconnect two transmssion lines using a small flat blade screwdriver to pop the spring clips out. Then gently tug the lines off.
3. gently pop off the two transmission lines from the retaining guides on the passenger side of the fan shroud, making sure both of them are resting below the retaining guides.
4. take off radiator cap so coolant will drain faster
5. pull off overflow bottle hose at the radiator cap and bend it out of the way
6. remove upper rad hose completely, just makes life easier without that short hose getting in the way.
7. take the grille off by popping the 6 (i think) snap clips across the top then remove the bottom guides out of their slots.
8. remove brace that goes over the battery (10mm) 2 bolts and 1 nut.
9. remove headlights, no tools needed
10. remove bolts (10mm) that hold the headlight bezel assembly, I think there were 10 total, one of which is behind the headlights. This will also include removing the bracket that the hood prop snaps to when it's in the down position. No need to remove the bezel assembly, with the bolts out it just allows it to move and flex a little.
11. remove crossmember going across the top of the radiator (13mm) 6 bolts
12. remove 4 bolts (10mm) that hold the fan shroud, radiatior, and condensor together at the top corners
13. remove hood latch assembly (10mm) 3 bolts
14. remove bracket that the hood latch assembly connected to. One 13mm bolt at the bottom of the bracket. It was kind of a pain to get to, I ended up using an open end wrench and "fingertipping" the bolt out once the wrench loosened it up.

At this point the radiator is basically disconnected from everything. The fan shroud has its little guides on the bottom that it sits on so I pulled the shroud up and pushed towards the engine to get it off of those. The condensor guides on the bottom sit on the top of little brackets that are part of the radiator. Basically you have to pull up the condensor a little and the pull it towards the front of the vehicle to get it off the radiator. Once this is done the radiator is free to be pulled straight up.....except for the lower tube where the radiator hose connects. It hits against the fan shroud. Since the shroud is made of somewhat flexible plastic I was able to use a large screwdriver and pry the tube past the shroud. The inside of the shroud has a large "void", so once you get the tube past the edge of the shroud you can pull the radiator straight up. When I got to the top of the shroud I was able to easily manipulate the radiator to get the tube past the shroud. Assembly is obviously reverse process. As always with radiators it just takes patience and a little time to put the new one back in without damaging any cooling fins. A second person would be nice to help, but I managed to do it by myself. The biggest hassle was manipulating the lower tube past the lower part of the shroud. Took me extra time because I was being extra cautious about bending any cooling fins.

Sorry I didn't take any picutres. I just wanted to get it done asap.

 

[jsinga]

Replaced radiator this week.
On envoy xl fan won't let the shroud move enough to get the radiator out. Just take fan off the clutch.
Don't forget to take the plastic mounts off the old radiator!
The biggest pain was slipping the condenser tabs in the radiator slots.
Used OE from Rockauto, was exactly like old 2003 one