New Radiator?

[Iwasgoodonce]

Car experts cast your eye over these pictures. I had to empty the garage over the weekend to get a new oven into the house (it blew up too!) and so decided to run the beast up to temperature. Upon doing this I noticed steam coming from the grill although not in huge volumes.
I removed the nose cone and saw that the matrix (correct word?) was wet in a couple of places.
It is wet rather than gushing out. There is plenty in the expansion tank so not a large leak/leaks.

Will I need a new rad? Will that stuff you can buy seal the leak? Does anyone know what car that one came from?

Thanks as ever.

 

[hamster]

Radweld worked for me in the past with my Mini. However, altering the water seemed to cause a failed pump some weeks later, and at that stage I replaced the lot.

I think that the other traditional remedy was (?) egg white - you had to put it in cold, and then warm up the engine (otherwise you just get a poached egg in the radiator). :shock:

The radiator looks to me like one from a Mk1 Escort...

 

[legrandefromage]

Bung a new rad on or some firms will do a recore - I needed one for my old SD1 and a recore came back looking as good as new.

 

[IDB1]

Chucking additives in the water is usually a quick fix that ends up with a bigger problem in the longer term.

Inadvisable imo..

If it's not much then live with it until you can find a replacement (lgf's re-core suggestion is good too - have dealt with rad places in the past who have sold me a re-cored rad and taken mine in p/ex....)

 

[hamster]

I do agree on the additives.
That rad looks like it's taken a bash at the top, so I doubt it's exchangeable for re-coring.

I'd wander off to a breaker's yard and just wander around looking for rads of similar size and shape. Modern ones seem to have steel fins (yuk) which rust rapidly, the older ones were copper.

 

[drcarlos]

K series engine? If it is don't even mess around, change the radiator now. Even if it isn't I would bother with radweld on that radiator.

Carl.

 

[chrisv40]

Have you had the car since it was built?

Most likely donor would have been a Sierra with a 2.0 Pinto engine I would have thought?

 

[fingers]

What is the engine? Looks like the rad on my MG...

 

[jimihendrix]

Chucking additives in the water is usually a quick fix that ends up with a bigger problem in the longer term.

Inadvisable imo..

If it's not much then live with it until you can find a replacement (lgf's re-core suggestion is good too - have dealt with rad places in the past who have sold me a re-cored rad and taken mine in p/ex....)

Agreed, chucking stuff in to block a leak with block your heater and thermostat among other things, if you are unsure where the rad came from take it to Serick, the will match the core with something else, did this for me with a Yank motor i had years ago, fitted the Yank rad tanks to a van core, superb job, cost about £70 at the time (that was a big rad)

If you go to a scrap yard you will end up with something just as bad as you have, scrap yards are ok for some things but not others.

 

[Iwasgoodonce]

What is the engine? Looks like the rad on my MG...

It is an Alfa twin cam 2l.