Posted by Kurt_JDB on August 12, 2012 at 20:31:24 from (74.167.224.109):
I finished up the radiator rebuild on my '38 B "basket case" and I thought I would post a few pictures of the process.
Here is the 38 B as it sits. I tried filling the radiator with water to see if it was any good. To say it leaked is an understatement.
I was able to disassemble the radiator bit by bit while still bolted to the frame. Here is the core with top and sides removed.
Down to the bottom tank. Note the mouse and wasp nests in the tank. I brazed nuts onto the bolts I broke off during tear down so I could work at turning them out. I ended up having to drill and retap three locations.
Well, I found the big leak! The bottom tank was split. I cleaned up the crack with my grinder and then epoxied it. It was too wide for me to braze, and I don't have an arc welder, else I would have tried FIt'S Muggy Weld.
Maybe This will hold, maybe not.
Next I glass blasted and painted the parts. Here is the top tank ready for paint.
The flanges of both tanks were really chewed up and corroded. I tried FIT's idea of covering the flanges with JB Weld, and then pressing the flange down on plastic over a smooth surface. Don't try this at home fellas, but I did use my wife's granite counter top for this operation. It worked pretty well. I then sanded the flange on a big sheet of emery cloth taped to a metal plate (outside, LOL).
After JB Weld/sanding I retapped the holes and cleaned everything up in preparation for reassembly.
I did a test fit and found that two of the pre-drilled holes on each radiator core flange were in the wrong place. A rat tail file and a dremel tool fixed me right up.
I bolted the radiator bottom tank to some wooden blocks to give me a stable platform for the reassembly.
Here is the core and the sides mounted on the bottom tank. I used High Temp red RTV for the sealer. Sort of messy, and it takes a while to tighten up all those bolts. If I do this again, I going to try the grease method someone suggested.
And here she is all back together. I also made new inlet and outlet pipes that I will screw in later, and give it a leak test.
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