Aluminium cored radiator repair?

john432

Member
Location
Carmarthenshire
My old MF8240 sprung a leak,had to remove the rad to find the exact location of the leak. Turned out to be impact damage from probably the fan cowling getting brittle and breaking up.
Had a price of £800 for a recore, new well over £1000!
From past experience trying to braze an aluminium oil cooler, I didn't want to attempt putting heat to it! So though what else do I have? Plenty of fiberglass resin and hardner...so I dug out the cooling fins both sides of the damaged tube. Cleaned it thoroughly with brake cleaner..put cardboard flat under the lower side, mixed resin and poured it in then put some bits of glass matting around the holed tube, and plenty of resin.. tank test looks good! But the resin did cover more than I hoped of the lower side . Need to order a new cowling so won't be going for a few days.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20220612_102335.jpg
    IMG_20220612_102335.jpg
    216.7 KB · Views: 0
  • IMG_20220612_102328.jpg
    IMG_20220612_102328.jpg
    325.4 KB · Views: 0
  • IMG_20220612_102423.jpg
    IMG_20220612_102423.jpg
    342.5 KB · Views: 0

box

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
NZ
Interesting repair, I've never seen that one before. It looks like the resin covering the back isn't too thick over most of it so you could probably scrape it off or push it out from the other side to regain that cooling area. I wonder how long it'll last? :unsure:

Is your local radiator repair shop not able to cheaply repair aluminium cores?
 

john432

Member
Location
Carmarthenshire
Phoned two rad repair shops , all over an hour away, both said drop it in and we'd have a look at it ..neither promised to look at it while I was there .. so that's a big chunk of two days gone ..
 

ACEngineering

Member
Location
Oxon
My old MF8240 sprung a leak,had to remove the rad to find the exact location of the leak. Turned out to be impact damage from probably the fan cowling getting brittle and breaking up.
Had a price of £800 for a recore, new well over £1000!
From past experience trying to braze an aluminium oil cooler, I didn't want to attempt putting heat to it! So though what else do I have? Plenty of fiberglass resin and hardner...so I dug out the cooling fins both sides of the damaged tube. Cleaned it thoroughly with brake cleaner..put cardboard flat under the lower side, mixed resin and poured it in then put some bits of glass matting around the holed tube, and plenty of resin.. tank test looks good! But the resin did cover more than I hoped of the lower side . Need to order a new cowling so won't be going for a few days.

That rad is perfectly able to be re cored. the core has tabs on it that are bent over and crimped on to the plastic top and bottom tanks, there is a seal between the 2.

I would send it to Longford radiators at Coventry if i was doing it and a new one wasn't a better option. Last time i had a rad like this the plastic top tank had gone white and brittle, Longford rads supplied me a new complete rad but in copper with copper tanks top and bottom but this was for a Hitachi zx130.
 

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
If you end up getting it recored, make sure to take scaled photos from all sides, and make sure when picking it up they've actually recored it with an acceptable core.
Bitter experience has me telling you this.
 

rob h

Member
Location
east yorkshire
We sent a tractor radiator for a repair a few years ago. They reconed the plastic header wouldn't stand being used again so supplied a complete new radiator for fraction of mf price
 

box

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
NZ
Waste of time getting them repaired unless you have an odd or obsolete or ridiculously expensive one
Not necessarily. The biggest problem is the radiator repair shops have become radiator supply shops, either because of lack of skill in the younger generation, lazyness, or both. I'm fortunate enough to live in a small town which still has a "seasoned" repairer, others aren't so lucky.

Damage like that on an alumnium core is easily repairable in about 30 minutes and should be a repair shops bread and butter. They're allowing the demise of their own industry if they can't be bothered fixing stuff like that.

It's OK, we can always buy in a cheap sh*t replica from China.
 

Tony1989

Member
Not necessarily. The biggest problem is the radiator repair shops have become radiator supply shops, either because of lack of skill in the younger generation, lazyness, or both. I'm fortunate enough to live in a small town which still has a "seasoned" repairer, others aren't so lucky.

Damage like that on an alumnium core is easily repairable in about 30 minutes and should be a repair shops bread and butter. They're allowing the demise of their own industry if they can't be bothered fixing stuff like that.

It's OK, we can always buy in a cheap sh*t replica from China.
I agree, poor quality of work and too expensive compared to a new radiator most of the time
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top