| Author |
Message |
Jerry (205.188.195.38)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2001 - 11:26 am: | |
Gee – after nearly a year of reading all the helpful things about GMC’s on this site and working on my 4106 for about the same time, maybe, just maybe I finally discovered something that may be helpful to others in return.
I removed my 06 radiator for the process of having it recored (it was quite deteriorated). Curiosity led me to remove one of the “tanks” to see just how much sediment remained despite my best efforts of flushing it in vehicle – I choose the lower tank. I’ve no way of knowing if what I saw was OEM, but, whatever material was used for the gasket on the lower tank had expanded to the point it was blocking most of the entire outer rows of the cooling tubes in the radiator. With the water flow coming down the radiator and out the tubes in the lower tank I’d guess the flow just pushed the gasket out of the way. However, I suspect if the same were true for the upper cooling tank significant cooling capability would have been lost. I have never driven the vehicle enough (yet) to know if I had a cooling problem but certainly suggest if all efforts to correct cooling problems fail this is one thing you might want to check. |
FAST FRED (209.26.87.41)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2001 - 1:25 pm: | |
Great tip , most stock GM 's never have any cooling problems , unless hopped up or the cooling system was badly ignored for a long long time.
Too much SCA is the usual cause of the Green Slime problem , and a good flush with 2 part cleaner usually does it.
But gasket material would not get eaten by good maint , so anyone with overheating problems should probably follow this advice and disassemble the radiator , {you can rod it yourself if carefull} and see whats happening inside.
FAST FRED |
Jim Wilke (64.12.107.53)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 15, 2001 - 8:40 am: | |
Fred is right. I took the radiator out of my 4104 because it had a heating problem. It would get up to 210 degrees after about 15 minutes at 65mph with a 75 degree outside temp. What I discovered after removing the top & bottom tank was that 80% of the tubes were filled with little flakes of rust. I also discovered that there was no thermostat in the engine. (Prior owner had driven this bus all over the U.S. this way!) I sat down in the driveway & flushed from the bottom to the top as much as I could get out. Then I took a length of old bandsaw blade, ground the teeth off it till it fit in the tube & rodded it out. These were flakes of hard rust and would never have been removed with flush solution. There were only two tubes I could not get all cleaned out. Bought some radiator tank gasket tape from a rad shop & put her back together with a new thermostat. Now it NEVER budges from 175 even in Florida Summer days at 70 mph at 98 deg. outside temp.
Jim-Bob |
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