I've heard it said a couple times now. If you get a off road bumper you should probably upgrade your radiator because of the blocked air flow. The bumper in question is a TJM T17 or Warn Rock Crawler, neither of which would have a winch in it for a while. I'm currently running a 1 row plastic/aluminum radiator and have no cooling issues.

Can I pretty much assume I'll have to upgrade to a 2 row (which was stock in my 1994) or maybe even 3 row, or might I be able to get by with the 1 row. I'm just wondering if this is something that pretty much everyone has to do, or if it's just on a case by case basis. The radiator is fairly new but it was also pretty cheap. I'm not against getting a new one, but swapping radiators always turns out to be a big mess.

 

Try it and see. Watch the coolant temps with the new bumper installed and see if they are higher than normal. Unless the radiator you have is very marginal, it likely won't be an issue.

 

IMHO, those bumpers don't block the airflow much more than the stock one.

Why did you"downgrade" the radiator? That is more of a concern to me than the minor difference due to the bumper...

 

I don't think that it will be a problem. As long as your radiator is working, and the fan is able to draw air through the radiator, it won't overheat. If you are really concerned, I would get a Taurus electric fan.

 

I actually consider a 1 row aluminum rad an upgrade over a 3 row brass/copper rad. The reason is the 1 row aluminum rad is one large tube (usually 1.25" or more) where the 3 row copper/brass are tiny little tubes and don't have as much tube to fin contact and don't flow as well. The stock Tacoma radiators are one row aluminum. My BMW rad is also one row aluminum. Now an upgrade from there would be a 2 row aluminum rad with 2 large tubes but they are very thick and may not fit the space. Also the second row doesn't double the capacity because the heat from the front row is dumped on the 2nd row.

I found my TJM T-17 added about 10 degrees to the coolant temp untill I opened it up and made the winch removeable.

And I can go from this:


To this in less than 10 minutes, including power connections:

 

Not to jack the tread but mt_goatwhere did you get the TJM T-17, it looks different than the T-17'S I've seen offered FS.

 

This is pretty much what the guy at the radiator shop told me. He even added that if my truck were to overheat after switching to the 1 row plastic/aluminum that he'd take it back and swap it for a 2 row. And it is 1 massive row! I didn't take coolant temperatures before and after the swap, but I'd be curious to know now...

mt_goat, that's a nice looking bumper, looks clean without the winch too!

 

Well it started out looking just like any other T-17 but I keep on making modifications to it.


Merry Christmas

 

I've had an ARB bumper on for quite awhile and never had any overheating problems. In fact the only time I've EVER had any overheating problems was when I had a Black Magic electric fan replacing my mechanical fan. This was with a stock bumper. That Black Magic fan couldn't keep the engine cool on long grades. Didn't matter if I was in first gear crawling up a hill or blowing over a pass at 70 during the winter. The truck would slowly overheat on any grade. Once the load was off, it would cool right back down. Went back to the mechanical stock fan - no more problems.