ptg

I attempted to r/r my radiator and was successful at draining and disconnecting everything, but when I went to remove it by pulling it out of the engine bay I couldn't get the lower pipe (on the radiatior) to clear the a/c lines. I ended up putting it back together. How do you remove the radiator, I assumed you pulled it up out of the vehicle or can it be dropped down? Thanks for any input.

DH6twinotter

I pulled mine out from the top, and didn't have any issues with the AC lines. I'll take a look this afternoon and see if I can get some ideas for you. Maybe they ran the lines different on the vehicles that don't use R12 refrigerant.

I'll take a look in a bit.

da_bigg_wigg

Yeah, mine came right out as well, and I have a/c as well. Are you referring to the bottom hose, or the actual opening in the radiator?

GV27

I'll jump on the "mine came out without a hitch" bandwagon. Not very helpful, I know......

ptg

I disconnected the lower hose, the piece that the lower hose wraps around is what i cannot get past the a/c lines. Thanks in advance.

DH6twinotter

I took a look at mine a bit ago. I've got about 1.5-2 inches of clearance between my radiator and those lines. You may be able to loosen the bolts that hold those two lines in place and kinda push them out of the way enough to get the radiator out. I think there is 1 bolt at either side, from the looks of it.

Just my $.02.

CeeDubH

I realize this is a pretty old post, but I've got the same issue. Was there ever any help or a resolution?

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

Just how bad is it can you move the AC line enough or wiggle the radiator to get it out.

worst case pull the fan off.

CeeDubH

Funny story:

The fan belt/pulley assembly failed about nine months ago during a Thansgiving roadtrip. The bearings froze and the fan, power steering, and alternator would no longer spin. Since I was on a roadtrip I purchased the NAPA Auto replacement that I could get immediately and swapped them out.

Flash forward nine months, the NAPA part failed wherein the stem that runs down the fan/pulley assembly slid forward an inch and a half and I can't get it back in. I need to replace again, but can't because the spacing between the fan and radiator now makes it so that I can't just pull the fan (and thus the fan/belt assembly) off, I need to pull the radiator too.

This moderate repair is now pretty ˟˟˟˟ty, and I can't get the radiator out because the A/C lines.

I'll try unscrewing the A/C lines and gently pulling them towards the block to make room, tell you how it goes in a couple of days, hopefully tomorrow. I have the part being shipped now but can't do anything until the radiator/fan are removed anyways.

Hope my angry rant isn't a tl;dr.

Thanks for any help.

CeeDubH

Sorry for the late reply, I was interrupted yesterday and couldn't try out the unbolting of the A/C line idea. I did that and it worked out just fine although the bracket that holds the A/C lines was more the problem than the lines themselves; I had to remove the bracket entirely. No problem.

Unfortunately, I did have to completely destroy my radiator to get it out, since as I'd mentioned before there was no room to pull the fan and the ports for the automatic transmission lines into the radiator had to be removed as well as the entire drain plug because they got in the way of the fan, effectively leaving my original radiator with three large holes in the bottom. But I did get the radiator out, as well as the fan and the now completely useless fan/belt assembly.

Again, the lesson here is to make sure you don't buy cheap parts that fail quickly.

Thanks for your suggestions.