CamaroGirl, been having a bit of trouble lately? The radiator may have been damaged in the latest overheating episode and sprung a leak, perhaps not. You need to clean up the mess. Get the cap on properly, refill with cooland and run the car for a bit keeping an eye on the coolant levels. If it stabilizes in a couple of days and there is no indication of more leaks you maybe OK. If the radiator is leaking you will see the coolant level dropping and a need to top it off. Radiator hoses, and heater hoses, get softer when they are hot. If they are old replacing them with new clamps is a good idea.
Right now you have coolant all over the place and you need to cool off the car and calm yourself down and then really get into what is going on with your car’s cooling system.
Once you start your engine, certain processes begin. The engine encounters friction which in turn creates heat. Over time a lot of heat will be generated. This is where the radiator plays its role. The primary purpose of the radiator is to prevent the overheating of the vehicle. Radiators is a heat exchanger that is part of the cooling system that dissipates heat by passing a coolant to the engine. Because of this important role, the radiators are essential for the normal functioning of the vehicle. So, the users have to make sure that the radiator is always in good working condition. If they find that the car’s engine is heating faster than expected, then the radiator has to be checked and replaced if necessary.
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What Are The Different Types Of Radiators?In these types, a series of tubes are connected to the upper and lower tank through which the water passes. To improvise the heat transfer, fins are placed around them. As water passes through all the tubes in this type, a defect on even one tube will affect the entire cooling process.
Also referred to as a honeycomb radiator because of its appearance, this type of radiator allows the coolant to flow through the spaces between them. Air will pass through the tube and the coolant flows in the in-between spaces. The cellular core type has a great benefit over the tubular one because if the tubes are clogged it will only affect a small portion of the entire cooling surface.
In downflow radiators, the tanks are placed at the top and bottom of the core. These were usually found in older vehicles as they have a tall yet narrow width grille and radiator support. The advantage of the downflow radiator is its inlet and outlet placement. They can be placed at the center, left, right, or somewhere in between. But they have a limited cooling capacity.
In this type, the radiators are placed on the left and right sides of the core. You can usually find crossflow radiators in modern vehicles, as they are shorter and have wide grille openings. When it comes to performance, crossflow radiators are an excellent choice as they have several benefits over the other ones. Because of their large core, they remove more heat. The fluid passes slowly through the core and spends sufficient time in the air stream. Crossflow radiators are also available in double and triple pass designs. This enhances the ability of the radiator to cool by increasing the number of times the coolant passes through the core.
This type of radiator has an aluminum core with a plastic tank. This is the most common type and is found in modern vehicles. They are the least expensive and hence they are mass-produced by the auto manufacturers.
This type of radiator has a brass tank with a copper core. They were usually replaced by plastic and aluminum radiators as copper was quite expensive and when affected by corrosion, the repair costs were high. Though these radiators were bulky, with advancements over time, their weight was reduced to half. Though these radiators are reliable and function perfectly, their high cost and exposure to rust, led to their downfall.
To overcome the downfalls of the copper and brass radiators, auto manufacturers came up with plastic radiators. These radiators have an alloy core, yet they use a plastic tank to reduce weight. Though they weren’t as efficient as copper and brass, their reduced weight and low cost made them one of the common types of radiators used by auto manufacturers. But the issue with the plastic radiators was that fixing them was quite difficult as you have to replace the entire component in case of a defect. To overcome these issues, aluminum radiators came into existence.
One major issue with the plastic radiator was that the entire component had to be replaced if damaged. This needed to be avoided and that’s where the aluminum radiators came in as handy. Because of their high thermal conductivity, they can absorb heat faster. Their cooling efficiency and heat dispersion are much better compared to copper and brass and plastic. The main benefit of an aluminum radiator was that, if a certain part was damaged, you can replace them instead of the whole component but at a high cost. These radiators are the best suited for high-performance cars if you are looking for better performance.
The tanks located on either end of the radiator core, which is typically constructed of aluminum and conducts coolant through the cooling fins, are the key components that are made of plastic. According to Nationwide Plastics, the plastic used for the radiator tanks is glass-reinforced nylon. The high-softening-point nylon plastic helps the plastic radiator tank withstand the pressure and temperatures involved.