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Radiator exploded

No. I'm pretty sure it was just a weak area of the radiator. It's not uncommon.

I can confirm that!!! It is the weak spot for sure, and there is a seam weld right at that weak corner as well!!

Some one mentioned temperature limits of the plastic below, and I can confirm that the ones I had, had deformed hose nipples from mild clamp pressure after just 1-2 years!!!! Another reason to avoid them.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I know it happened in the driveway because my Mon heard the pop in the house. Its towed back to my house now and I have an entire new cooling system on the way to replace it all
 
Here is the radiator

5e5ysa6u.jpg
 
No. I'm pretty sure it was just a weak area of the radiator. It's not uncommon.

There is usually a reason behind it. They don't just fail for no reason. Hell, mine is 13 years old with 200k on it. Still cools the jeep fine.

I would make sure you aren't getting pressure problems before you blow another.
 
There is usually a reason behind it. They don't just fail for no reason. Hell, mine is 13 years old with 200k on it. Still cools the jeep fine.

I would make sure you aren't getting pressure problems before you blow another.

The usual reason is what I call Jemlins. They are a mutant cross breed between Gremlins and Jeeps!:laugh3:

LOL!

Their goal in life is make sure you Just Empty Every Pocket, thus the acronym JEEP!
 
Just put a new radiator in, made in Taiwan, a little under engineered and over built. The thing actually looks clunky and weighs more than your average radiator. I wasn't spending another $250 on an aluminum 2 core Modine, that started leaking two weeks after I bought it, again. I cruised the shelves at the local parts place and found this Taiwan dinosaur.

Well anyways, I noticed the coolant level in my overflow tank wasn't changing any, hot or cold (in my HO). The top hose was hard as rock when the motor heated up. On a hunch I tried to put a drill bit through the overflow nipple on the filler neck, it was plugged, casting flaw. At first I thought the new Stant radiator cap I put on there was defective. I'm sure glad I caught it before something blew, I did notice my (fairly) new heater valve is now seeping a tiny bit.

Just a thought, but people who swap out stuff for new stuff. just for piece of mind and reliability may be shooting themselves in the foot. OEM or after market, it seems most new parts have a high failure rate.

Old school Dodge philosophy. from when I went to Dodge truck school in the 60's. Replace only what is broken, the parts that are in there are tried and proven. That's not saying don't inspect and measure, just trust the tried and proven parts more than a random replacement. Basically follow the old axiom "If it ain't broke don't fix it". And the second part of the same axiom "New isn't necessarily better".
 
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Guess you youngsters don't remember when all radiators had brass tanks.
Had a couple of the brass tanks blow out from old age.
Everything wears out eventually.
Was this caused by too much pressure from a bad head gasket, an old radiator cap or just from aging, who knows?
Time to do some diagnostics.
The OP didn't provide any information as to the age of the radiator, it may be a 15 year old radiator with a half million miles on it.
 
Yeah but brass can be fixed unlike plastic.

I've actually had pretty good luck gluing plastic with Epoxy. Most of my repairs have lasted 4-5 years. It is all about the prep and the quality of the epoxy.

Copper and brass leech material away over the years, outside and inside. On the outside organic material rots and makes acid, on the inside coolant is acidic anyway. I've had brass radiators you could crush with one hand the material got so thin. They basically fell apart.
 
Yeah but brass can be fixed unlike plastic.
Brass radiators are easier to repair as long as the metal has not been corroded away, making it too thin to solder or to retain enough strength.
Plastic tank repair kits are available and work if just sealing a crack or small hole. I have used them several times and never had a patch go bad.
http://www.2wheelpros.com/permatex-radiator-repair-kit-2359976.html?gclid=CM35sJae9rcCFU_ZQgodIA8AlQ

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, radiator problems were very common, much more so than today. You did not see many radiators last 10 or more years without major repairs.
I know of several 1997-2000 XJs with the original radiators. My 13 year Acura run cools on its original, trouble free plastic/aluminum radiator.

Coolants are much better today. Engines, and cars in general, have better anti-corrosion engineering.
That said, my XJ has a brass radiator but only because thicker core radiators are only available in brass or aluminum.
When it come to resistance to pressure, aluminum wins hands down, one of the reason why racers use them.
IMO, most radiator problems are the result of poor maintenance and improper coolants.
 
Brass radiators are easier to repair as long as the metal has not been corroded away, making it too thin to solder or to retain enough strength.
Plastic tank repair kits are available and work if just sealing a crack or small hole. I have used them several times and never had a patch go bad.
http://www.2wheelpros.com/permatex-radiator-repair-kit-2359976.html?gclid=CM35sJae9rcCFU_ZQgodIA8AlQ

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, radiator problems were very common, much more so than today. You did not see many radiators last 10 or more years without major repairs.
I know of several 1997-2000 XJs with the original radiators. My 13 year Acura run cools on its original, trouble free plastic/aluminum radiator.

Coolants are much better today. Engines, and cars in general, have better anti-corrosion engineering.
That said, my XJ has a brass radiator but only because thicker core radiators are only available in brass or aluminum.
When it come to resistance to pressure, aluminum wins hands down, one of the reason why racers use them.
IMO, most radiator problems are the result of poor maintenance and improper coolants.

You are a hundred percent right about the proper coolants, I basically have three choices here, without special order or paying double for something exiotic. All three have the same manufacturer's specifications on the label (Chrysler, Mercedes etc.), one eats water pump bearings.

Maybe I'm just unlucky, but three different XJ's with four different radiators and they all popped a small leak in the same spot, upper right hand corner where the cross channels mate to the end tank. My guess is the end tanks are basically unsupported and when I bottom out, dirt roading, it hammers this area with the weight of the coolant in the end tanks.

I'e been thinking of greasing up the bottom of the radiator (so it doesn't stick and I can get it back out again) and using a dab of expanding foam underneath to support the end tanks.
 
on the inside coolant is acidic anyway.
Typo? Old style Coolant is highly basic, around 11-12 as I recall. One of the new coolants Prestone came out with in 1996 (not sure if they changed it since), lowered the pH to 8-9. As the coolant ages tiny amounts of CO2 from exhaust slowly makes carbonic acid out of CO2 and water in the coolant. That is why coolant needs to be changed every so many miles or years.
 
Typo? Old style Coolant is highly basic, around 11-12 as I recall. One of the new coolants Prestone came out with in 1996 (not sure if they changed it since), lowered the pH to 8-9. As the coolant ages tiny amounts of CO2 from exhaust slowly makes carbonic acid out of CO2 and water in the coolant. That is why coolant needs to be changed every so many miles or years.

Another one of my false assumptions shot down, I've seen the caustic effects (or possibly oxidation) on metals and assumed it was acidic. My main concerns were always the freezing point and the boiling point. And trying to figure out a way to get ten gallon containers to the roof of commercial buildings to fill there chillers.

I wonder if it has a shelf life?

I remembered reading someplace in one of my refrigeration books. Here is the paragraph, "Studies show that uninhibited ethylene glycol will degrade into five organic acids - glycolic, glyoxylic, formic, carbonic, and oxalic - in the presence of heat, oxygen, and common cooling system metals such as copper and aluminum. Copper and aluminum act as a catalyst in the presence of uninhibited ethylene glycol. These organic acids will then chemically attack copper and aluminum in as little as three weeks under extreme conditions (212°F and oxygen bubbling into the uninhibited ethylene glycol solution) to form metal organic compounds in the fluid, which can lead to clogging of pipes, pumps, valves, etc."

I've never actually PH tested it myself, all I really know (assume) is what I've been taught. Maybe the reason I've had trouble with one brand of the glycol antifreeze I bought at Home Depot, is because somebody saved a few bucks during manufacturing by not adding inhibitors?
 
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The biggest thing you need to worry about with copper/brass is trace presence of ammonia, it forms some nasty complexes that eat copper out of the radiator.

I remember some years ago driving my old POS mazda pickup, I was driving to work, and just as I got off the freeway (coming down the ramp) one of the tubes in the radiator let go and went kabooooooom in a giant steam cloud in front of the truck, which I promptly drove into. Left a massive mess of rust, anti-freeze and stop-leak the previous owner was adding in quantities that seemed greater than either water or anti-freeze.
 
They use a corrosion protective alkaline salt (sodium Metasilicate in the old green formula) to neutralize acid as it forms. Small, slow normal head gasket leaks produce tiny amounts of CO2 acid over the years and if the coolant pH drops too low, the silicate solution precipitates as a white solid known as concrete (the white stuff you no doubt have seen on clogged radiator core tubes). Then the pH drops quickly to acid range and eats all the metals very quickly. I am told the ethylene glycol also slowly oxidizes to form a carboxylic acid and then reacts with the silicate to form a neutral organic salt, but that also consumes sodium silicate slowly dropping the pH. Once again this is the reason there is limit on years or miles between changes to avoid the critical shift in pH. If the silicates precipitate in the block it is like concrete boil scale, very hard to remove one it forms.

That said, electolysis is one of the big problems, especially since we use 3-4 different metals, copper, zinc (brass) Iron and aluminum in vehicle cooling systems and engines. Stray currents due to poor grounds turn into a battery/plating system that dissolves metals FAST!!!!

This is all correct and well written. The main inhibitor in the old green formula (which is what I still use on everything) is Sodium Metasilicate. It pretty much neutralizes acids as they form, holds the pH stable until for a long time, keeping the acids from being able to attack the metals. They neutralize the acid by reacting OH- from the base (silicate) with the H+ from the acid to form a water molecule H2O.

Another one of my false assumptions shot down, I've seen the caustic effects (or possibly oxidation) on metals and assumed it was acidic. My main concerns were always the freezing point and the boiling point. And trying to figure out a way to get ten gallon containers to the roof of commercial buildings to fill there chillers.

I wonder if it has a shelf life?

I remembered reading someplace in one of my refrigeration books. Here is the paragraph, "Studies show that uninhibited ethylene glycol will degrade into five organic acids - glycolic, glyoxylic, formic, carbonic, and oxalic - in the presence of heat, oxygen, and common cooling system metals such as copper and aluminum. Copper and aluminum act as a catalyst in the presence of uninhibited ethylene glycol. These organic acids will then chemically attack copper and aluminum in as little as three weeks under extreme conditions (212°F and oxygen bubbling into the uninhibited ethylene glycol solution) to form metal organic compounds in the fluid, which can lead to clogging of pipes, pumps, valves, etc."

I've never actually PH tested it myself, all I really know (assume) is what I've been taught. Maybe the reason I've had trouble with one brand of the glycol antifreeze I bought at Home Depot, is because somebody saved a few bucks during manufacturing by not adding inhibitors?
 
The biggest thing you need to worry about with copper/brass is trace presence of ammonia, it forms some nasty complexes that eat copper out of the radiator.

Never heard this before. Where would ammonia come from? is there an ammonium compound in one of the new coolant formulas? I find it had to believe ammonia could form on its own? Ammonia would oxidize to Nitrate in an open system I think. Here is good discussion on the topic that backs me up.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=614937

[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Yeah, I just checked out our chemical flush solution and I can see how it could be mistaken for an "ammonia" smell. It's actually a good product to use, you just need to flush thoroughly because the flush solution will have a pH of about 2.5 and that's not very good for your system. Further, the acid that's left over will eat up some of your alkalinity in your fresh coolant.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] [/FONT]
 
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