PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

Squiggle Dog · #20 12-04-2017, 09:48 PM

Despite having been rebuilt in 2007, my radiator had been leaking from the vent tube and transmission hose fittings for several years. I've been patching it up with JB Weld, but it eventually breaks loose. I started trying silicone sealant, and that didn't hold up, either. So, I decided it was time to take it to a shop to be rebuilt.

I found a pretty good shop to rebuild the radiator, but I got blasted for using JB Weld and told that the only way he could remove it was heat, and it was going to be a health hazard for him to breathe in the fumes when he burned it off. I was under the impression that removing dents was common practice, but was told he doesn't do it, but he would try to remove some of the large ones. I kind of wish I had just torched off the tanks myself and pounded out the dents before bringing it in. True to form, a really awful latex-based paint was used that never dried and half of it stuck to the ground and peeled off when I lifted it from the floor. So, I stripped off the paint. But, after doing this, I realized that the lower radiator tube wasn't soldered completely. So, I took it back and had it repaired.

The shop owner seemed dismayed that I stripped off the paint. I told him that I was going to put high heat semi gloss black on it. Then he said, "High heat semi gloss black...?" with a bewildered tone like he had not heard of it before. He said, "You know, the only thing the paint does is protect from corrosion. It doesn't have to be pretty." Some people don't understand aesthetics. And his paint wasn't going to do a very good job of protecting from corrosion, anyway, with most of the paint on the bottom peeled off and flaking off everywhere else. He said that I should have told him to not paint it. I agree. I was going to, but it seems like when people post pictures of radiators they've had rebuilt, they've always had a nice looking semi gloss black finish and I figured that would save me from having to paint it myself. But I am done trusting the paint quality of radiator shops. I wasn't sure how to ask him if his paint jobs were any good without offending him.

I bought more paint stripper and used steel wool, a brush, and a power washer to get the rest of the paint off, even on the tubes and fins. I spent a lot of time carefully straightening the fins. Now it has a respectable semi gloss black paint job.

The rubber radiator/oil cooler mounting strips were in bad condition and my radiator cap broke and pieces of it keep breaking off. ********AZ had the rubber strips for $2 each and a radiator cap for $6. At $10, I think that's the cheapest order I've placed with them. I used a wooden chopstick to push on the new rubber strips.

My oil cooler was leaking pretty badly and the radiator shop said about the only thing you can do with those is clean them really well with Purple Power and then stick epoxy over the holes (that's totally different than me using JB Weld).

Fortunately I had a spare oil cooler that was a little mangled, but I was able to straighten it out and paint it.