Okay, a little background...

On my 1990 Toyota Pickup (2WD), a while back I got the brilliant idea to convert to an electric fan and install an aluminum radiator. I opted to go with a Champion Radiator - which I'm not positive was a great idea. Since installing it, it has been leaking (weeping) coolant all over the frame rails pretty regularly. Not enough to cause any significant cooling failures or anything, but just enough to be super annoying. I think in the 4 or so years it's been in, maybe the coolant level in the overflow tank has dropped 2 inches or so? So very, very minor coolant seepage. It still makes me nervous though.

The leak is where the cooling fins & tubes connect into the lower tank on both sides. It's very, very minor, but it makes a mess down there and makes me nervous that one day it will go for broke and start gushing coolant out when I least want it to. The leak is on both sides (down at the left and right corners where the tube mate up to the lower cooling tank). I have some videos about the original installation on my channel (below there) if anyone wants to see them. Overall, it's a nicely made radiator, but this constant coolant weeping is a major drag.





Anyway, once I got the electric fan stuff dialed in, the setup has been really fantastic. However, as mentioned above, the radiator started weeping coolant down at the lower right and left corners pretty early on and has not stopped since. I contacted Champion and - to their credit - they did send me out a replacement radiator. I haven't installed that replacement yet (it's actually in storage right now about 400 miles away because I'm in the process of moving). So to make a long story short: either I drive 800 miles round trip to get their replacement radiator that's currently in my store unit or I buy one off eBay or Amazon for $100 (which frankly seems like a lot less work than an 800 mile trip).

In searching eBay last night, I found this listing here:



WTH?

287 SOLD????

Someone here has to be running one of these Chinese made radiators. If anyone wants to share their experiences - good or bad - I would love to hear. I'm thinking about buying one to review on the channel long term and would be interested to hear from anyone else who has gone this route.

Ray

 

Also, doesn't have to be that specific radiator.. any ebay or Amazon stuff also. Or any experiences at all with any brand. I've also been looking at CSF but not sure if they make an all aluminum one for our trucks yet or not.

Ray

 

this is ray nada? here is some radiator data regarding csf fitment: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...estion-315211/

i got one for my 4runner, it's probably the taller 2314 version... not aluminum.

 

okay thanks! I'll check into that. I saw the CSF radiator in another build on YouTube. How's your experience been with it so far?

And yes, it's me.

Ray

 

When I pull this current radiator out, I'm taking a Sawzall to it and opening up the lower tank to see why it's not water right. I was thinking I might TIG weld it back together in there, although I sold my AC/DC unit and currently only have a DC TIG here right now.

I've done business with companies in China. The company I use for stuff like Titanium exhaust studs for the 22RE are in China and do amazing work. Seems like someone in China must know how to TIG weld aluminum radiators. I'm curious to check out these eBay units. They all kinda seem to be the same. Gonna check out Amazon also.

If anyone here has been brave enough to go all in on the eBay 3-Row $100 radiator, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Ray

 

and nothing against Champion Radiators. My radiator has done its job and I like it a lot. However, more than one person has commented on my channel that they had similar leaking issues (same location too). A couple guys were pretty heated about it also in the comments there in that one video. I ended up contacting the distributor that handles radiators for Champion and I think they got him all fixed up with a replacement radiator, but not sure. I can tell you this much, this leaking stuff is for the birds.

Ray

 

i had been running a $125 plastic tank radiator that i got from rockauto, which had been perfect for probably 8 years or so, now the price has shot up to $572?!! https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=271576

tariffs i think, internet prices for that cu147 are all over the place.

might be driving the 22re up thru l.a. to yosemite and the west side of lake tahoe, acid test for the csf.

 

Yea on my truck, when climbing a steep grade in 100 degree weather, that's when you really see what's up. My electric fan comes on around 190 degrees and won't shut back off until it drops to around 140 (this is the water temp exiting the radiator coming back into the motor). On a long grade, I think it's theoretically possible that my engine coolant might not be able to get back below 140 while climbing, which would result in the fan running until the summit. So far that's never happened, but it's come close.

I have a manual bypass switch where I can turn my electric fan on, so sometimes before starting up a hill I will flip that on and try to draw out as much heat as possible from the system before starting to climb.

I think the max I ever saw my oil temp hit was maybe ~ 225 or so while climbing a long grade; normally it hangs out around 175 and doesn't top 200 even when going up steep hills.

I'm building a 3RZ turbo for my truck and I tell you what, I think I'm gonna try to incorporate some type of external oil cooler or something for that - like dry sump but pump the oil around front through a small cooler or something.

Ray

 

The cheapo plastic tank one that was in my 4r wept for 4 years. I finally couldn’t take smelling the leak anymore and went with CSF through Rock auto. Be advised, cap sold separately (?). But i am VERY happy with it.

 

Mr RayJohn So where did you connect your oil Temp at? Is it electrical or mechanical?
I rebuilt a 5VZ and put into my 95. And I had a mech temp guage (which may or may not have come from a pump truck upgrade that ended up going back to OK for reclamation...) that I - really sketch here - rigged up into even bank head at rear in one of those expansion holes. If I ever have to pull the heads (or the motor) going to be a real pain. 12k miles and it's still good. However got a ticking that I now believe is a wrist pin. Had a machine shop inspect pistons, do heads, etc. Thats about the only parts that did not get touched. Just going to drive it until it explodes I guess. Even had a real shop check valve clearances. They didn't really change anything.

Anyway, the most I've ever seen head temps get as 205 or 210 iirc. (aside from after engine is shut off).

 

I've been running an ebay all-aluminum 3 row radiator in my '94 4x4 pickup for 4 years now with no issues.

I initially was looking for a radiator to replace the cheap plastic v6 radiator that I had put in 7 years prior. The plastic hadn't failed, but I was worried that it would.

I saw no shortage of talk about CSF radiators, as well as Champion brand, but both seemed to have several mentions of leakage, which didn't align with the premium price, so I just went for the cheap ebay aluminum unit because I've run them successfully in my Nissan 240sx (with the turbo SR20DET swap from Japan) for years, putting it through countless drift events and street drifting nights without any problems. Drifting is brutal on the cooling system, btw.

I'd purchase one again if need be. The stock fan shroud fitment isn't the best (not that this matters to you since you've got e-fans), and I plan on cutting some thin plastic strips from some garbage to fill in the sides of the shroud where it meets the radiator (just to try to help with the AC condenser air flow since these trucks have no aux. fan), but even as-is, it hasn't overheated on me whatsoever in the hot, humid Alabama temperatures, even with a full tank of gas, a YZ125 and YZ250 in the bed along with all my riding gear heading uphill with the AC on to ride at Sand Mountain Motocross, so I think it's pretty solid.

 

Awesome thanks! Yeah the CSF stuff looks to be real nice quality. I believe Stance Works is using their radiator on their Ferrari F40 tube frame project that they are working on.

Ray

 

I'm running an AEM oil temp gauge (so it's electrical, not mechanical). The sender is wedged in there down near the right side motor mount; there's an 1/8 NPT plug in the main oil galley if I remember correctly and I pulled that out and was able it barely fit AEM's sender down in the mix down there. I think if you search the channel for "gauge" I might have a video where I pan down there and show.

I also have a VDO gauge that monitors the water temp coming back out of the radiator and that one is mechanical and has a capillary that runs clear into the center dash area under the vent controls. That's a handy gauge for seeing how well the radiator is working, since it gives kind of a differential reading between the actual engine coolant temp in the motor vs. the temp exiting the radiator.

Ray

 

Okay thanks a lot man. That's great info. Do you happen to have the eBay link to the one you purchased? I know they tend to be generic on eBay but sometimes sellers keep the link up and just sell over and over to people on there.

I may have to make a run down to my store unit next week (my daughter lives down that way and she's gonna come visit for the summer). I may pickup the replacement champion but based on this first go-around with their radiator (and as you point out, more than one person out there on-line singing the same sad song about leaking from these brands) I'm not super keen on going through all the work to replace my radiator and bleed the cooling system, etc. only to be right back where I started. That's making me consider trying out one of these eBay 3-Row jobs.

Incidentally, I looked up the radiator I bought from Champion and the model # is 945. I was kinda surprised it's a 2 row. I could have sworn when I looked in there last time I saw 3 rows, but I need to double check.

YZ250 - that's the dream. 2-stroke and water cooled I had a couple old school air cooled Yamaha 2-strokes for a while (DT3 and LT3, 250cc and 100cc respectively) and let me tell ya, water cooled is way better... unless you enjoy your motorcycle reenacting the 3 mile island incident now and again.

Ray

 

okay I double checked and it's a 2-row that I'm running over here with the champion. So I'm just remembering things wrong.



The other night I was reading something on Summit's website (here):

https://help.summitracing.com/knowle...SR-05281/en-us

and they pointed out that a 2 row actually has more contact area for the tubes to the fins than a 3 row - which is something I had never stopped to think about it. But it does make sense:

2-Row radiator = two 1" tubes - so 1.00 x 2 = 2"
3-Row radiator = three 5/8" tubes - so .625 x 3 = 1.875"

And they were saying something about by the time air passes by the 3rd tube it's already drawn out a lot of heat from the first 2. However, I don't think the physics of that really adds up. 2 or 3 row, you are basically dealing with the same energy and roughly the same surface area of tubing. It's like trying to figure out if an 8 port 3RZ head flows better or worse than a 4 port head.

Anyway, given that my truck is 2WD - soon to be 2WD with a rear E-locker - I believe only a 2-row will bolt up without mods to the front of the truck.

Ray

 

No problem! Glad to help as I've been a long-time subscriber to your Youtube channel, and I've commented a lot on there and always enjoyed the discourse, so I'll take any chance I can get to help out.
Here's the link:
www.ebay.com/itm/324579694082

And just for future readers of this thread who will inevitably encounter dead links once this thread's a few years old, here's a screenshot of the listing:


Interestingly, my ebay purchase history shows I ordered mine from a seller named at_autoparts,
yet when I click "Buy Again" (since the listing itself is no longer clickable), it pops up with that screenshot'd listing from K_tuningparts.
Looks like the same exact radiator images.

Love me some old-school MX bikes! Rode a '74 Honda Elsinore CR125M for the first time a month or so ago.
It was super fun but definitely wasn't as happy several laps in, saturated with heat compared to that first lap or 2 haha.

 

Thank you very much for the link and also the kind words on the channel there. I try to answer every single comment/question people ask on the channel and really enjoy chatting over there about 22RE stuff and Toyota stuff in general.

On the bikes... yah, I miss my R1 a lot these days. I've been thinking about maybe building a custom frame super moto or something and throwing in a 2-stroke but so many projects so little time. Right now getting geared up to build this 3RZ-FE turbo in a few years for my truck and for a series on my channel. Actually just heading out the door to pickup some bore gauges so I can measure this block over here and decide if it's a boat anchor or if it's worth prepping further. The block came out of a 1998 Tacoma and looks pretty good, but there is definitely some sort of wear on the cylinder walls (mid way down, gulp). I was hoping I could just hone it and run JE pistons, but I'm thinking it might need a re-bore +.010" but not sure just yet. Dart sleeves? 30 PSI boost? I don't know....

Also trying not to snap anything in my beloved W58 gearbox

Thanks again on the eBay link. That definitely helps out over here.

Ray

 

Yeah, air cooled bikes are something else. They like to heat soak and get unhappy.

Some years ago a long time friend of mine helped build a bike for a guy who was trying to set a record in some class for motorcycles on the salt flats I think. I don't remember what the class was, but maybe under 1 liter top speed kinda thing. My buddy (Josh) suggested going with a water cooled 2-stroke but the guy running the show insisted on air cooled. I don't remember all the details, but I just remember when I swung by Josh's shop later to ask how their attempt at a record was going, he said something about the bike melting down due to lack of air cooling during one of the runs. He basically said something to the effect of "basically the motor experienced a reactor core melt down and we couldn't save it..." - so that was that I think.

Ray

 

Anytime man! Looking forward to your 3RZ content, especially since a video or 2 has recently surfaced on them even though you're still in the preliminary stage. I'm actually about to reference your freeze plug video for my '88 22RE that I'm in the middle of rebuilding. Knowledge is power!

That's wild! Sounds like that engine wasn't happy.

Also, interesting stuff on the 2-row vs 3-row thing. It very well might be more effective cooling on the 2-row, with the 3-row possibly being buzzword buyer bait. "Bigger number must be better" lol

 

Let me know how it goes with the freeze plugs, but that method where you bend in the two edges across from each other 180 degrees makes that job a snap.

Ray