radiator

I need to remove the radiator to replace the water pump. Lots of bolts on the front of radiator attaching to the body. Anyone have a step by step to remove and replace the radiator? thanks


Dalle

I recommend going and buying a Haynes manual. I paid 15 bucks for mine and it has a lot of information on doing your own repairs.

I had to remove the radiator when I replaced my condensor. it's pretty simple until you get to the hoses at the bottom right. Once I saw that I pretty much gave up. It did not look simple....
If you can get away with just tilting it foward then it's not too bad.
FIRST THING IS IS DUMP ALL THE COOLANT. I couldn't find the plug so I used a pump and pumped it out into a container so that I could put it back in. Then remove the reserve hose (skinny hose) by the cap, followed by the larger hose on the left. Just use a pair of plyers to squeeze the clamp to release it and slide it off. Then you'll have a skinny metal hose behind the radiator on the right side. Once you get those off the only ones left are the ones at the bottom...
You need to remove the front grill, then remove the upper radiator cover which has all the labels on it, and lift it off and place it on the engine with the front latch cable still connected.

It's not too bad. I have a 93 with the V8 and replaced mine along with the water pump last week. There is a plug for draining the coolant. It was on the drivers side bottom of the radiator on the side that faces the engine. While the coolant is draining you can start to take the grill and radiator top bracket off. There are 3 screws that hold the grill in place. Once the grill is out you can take out the other bolts that hold the radiator in place. Looking through the opening where the grill was there are 2 bolts near the top and 1 bolt on each side. Then you can start on the top plate removal. This is pretty staight forward. There are 2 nuts holding the fan shroud in place and the two nuts on top of the plate. Mine had 2 more sort of undernieth the rubber seal on the front edge of the plate that I didn't see right away. Now comes the fun part. Removing the fan. I took off the serpentine belt and usde a strap wrench and a very large adjustable(~34mm) to loosen the big nut holding the fan on the water pump. Once that came off then you can remove the upper and lower coolant hoses(if you didn't do it earlier). Then you need to remove the transmission lines that are on the passenger side of the radiator(you shouldn't need to mark them, one is near the top and one on the bottom and they can only reach one of the fittings) At this point you should be able to remove the fan shroud and radiator. The water pump bolts are all pretty easy to get at but there is a hose(about 1 inch) that comes out of the top of the pump that is a PITA to get off. Once that comes off you can scape the old gasket off, claen the surfaces up, apply a thin layer of RTV and reverse the whole process.
Couple of things that I had trouble with
I trashed a couple of O-rings trying to replace the small metal tube back in the new water pump.
I had the whole thing back to gether and noticed the rubber spacer that goes on one of the posts on the bottom of the radiator. This will induce much cursing.
I took this oportunity to replace my hoses and belt as well as convert to an electric fan set-up. You can see some of the how-to here http://jeephorizons.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=266
Hope this helps. If you have any questions you can PM me and I'll try to answer them.
ByronP