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2004 Silverado Crew Cab Solid Axle Swap (LLY with ZF 6 speed)

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I'm thinking I'm just barking up the wrong tree now. I put this Mishimoto Radiator in last November. As soon as it started getting hot here I started having problems and noticing the fan clutch wasn't locking up. Combine that with the water pump possibly slipping (still not sure on that one) and I'm chasing my tail.

I still have the stock radiator on the shelf, I'm pulling it down today and installing it to test (I'll put the non-welded pump back in at the same time).

I'm so sick of the smell of dexcool...
 
Have you seen this video for ideas.



And the V2 mod for LLY.
I remember a lot of guys adding the extra radiator years ago when these truck were newer.
 
I'd love to do an external oil cooler, unfortunately nobody makes a kit anymore that I've seen, it all needs to be custom.

The big issue is, I didn't have a cooling issue (other than when towing a lot of weight up big hills), now I do. All the time, not just when towing, not just when climbing hills, all the time. Before I try to fix that heavy towing issue that the oil cooler would help with, I need to fix the regular cooling issue that this truck has never had before.

I'll get the stock radiator back in today as that is the only difference between this summer and last summer. Hopefully that resolves the issue, I just have trouble believing that this big beautiful Mishimoto radiator could be the problem, but I'm out of ideas.
 
is the factory air dam, back side bumper air deflector and shroud rubbers all in place?
also I think in 2006 they made some upgrades for improved cooling. This shroud was a change I believe.

48CA4267-C07C-4397-ACEB-DBAB56573B26.jpeg
 
The front bumper and all the shrouds etc. have been on the truck since 2017, the cooling issues started this summer. Other things could obviously be optimized, but there's something major wrong that wasn't a problem last year.
 
Still sounds so similar to the problem we had last year I posted about earlier. I’ve thought about it trying to remember exactly what we did. My problem is all the damn parts my guy threw at it I don’t remember which made the difference.

But it was throwing the overheat message on the cluster too. It wasn’t having an overheating issue until we fixed something stupid like a leak.

If I still worked there I could have pulled the RO up to look it over but I can’t now.

I think your process of elimination is good to track it down. It’s just time consuming to do.
 
Lol, I don't recall ever plugging any of the coolant hoses with rags, only the intake, but if this doesn't work I'll be stuffing cameras in all the coolant passages I can get to.
 
Winner winner chicken dinner...

Apparently the Mishimoto radiator is a flaming pile of :poo:.

Todays test run, original equipment (from 2004) stock radiator, brand new AC Delco OEM water pump, brand new Chevrolet OEM fan clutch:
It's 106 today for reference.

The highest temperature I saw was 208, this was at 80mph and the fan clutch locked up and quickly cooled it down to below 200 before it unlocked. I drove it around a lot more today than I did the last couple test runs and I couldn't ever get it back over 207 after that first time.

I'm going to say I probably never had a bad water pump and I wasted quite a bit of money trying to make this stupid POS radiator function at least as good as stock with no luck. What an expensive pain in the a$$.
 
r3dd0g said:
Winner winner chicken dinner...

Apparently the Mishimoto radiator is a flaming pile of :poo:.

Todays test run, original equipment (from 2004) stock radiator, brand new AC Delco OEM water pump, brand new Chevrolet OEM fan clutch:
It's 106 today for reference.

The highest temperature I saw was 208, this was at 80mph and the fan clutch locked up and quickly cooled it down to below 200 before it unlocked. I drove it around a lot more today than I did the last couple test runs and I couldn't ever get it back over 207 after that first time.

I'm going to say I probably never had a bad water pump and I wasted quite a bit of money trying to make this stupid POS radiator function at least as good as stock with no luck. What an expensive pain in the a$$.
Click to expand...
So are we thinking the mishimoto doesn’t allow air to flow correctly, to the clutch?
Or water flow? Or maybe both?
 
I don't know for sure at this point, all I know is that the Mishimoto did not transfer the heat from the water to the air as well as a stock one, which then caused the clutch to not lock up (since the air wasn't as hot), which caused temps to go high.

I have no idea how you screw up a radiator that bad, but that seems to be what happened.
 
r3dd0g said:
I don't know for sure at this point, all I know is that the Mishimoto did not transfer the heat from the water to the air as well as a stock one, which then caused the clutch to not lock up (since the air wasn't as hot), which caused temps to go high.

I have no idea how you screw up a radiator that bad, but that seems to be what happened.
Click to expand...
I would cut the tanks off the core to see what I could see…
 
r3dd0g said:
I'm thinking I'm just barking up the wrong tree now. I put this Mishimoto Radiator in last November. As soon as it started getting hot here I started having problems and noticing the fan clutch wasn't locking up. Combine that with the water pump possibly slipping (still not sure on that one) and I'm chasing my tail.

I still have the stock radiator on the shelf, I'm pulling it down today and installing it to test (I'll put the non-welded pump back in at the same time).

I'm so sick of the smell of dexcool...
Click to expand...
Long shot…

You say dexcool. And I’m a bit surprised you didn’t swap it out for something else. I use factory dex, because I didn’t want to take a chance flushing it out and not doing a good job.
people hate it for one reason or the other. Keep it fresh and only dex and it should be fine.

You never mixed in anything else did you? Not saying you did but it will gell with non dex.
 
We had horrible luck with Mishimoto stuff when I worked at the 4WD shop. Overpriced junk that would crack and then they wouldn't warranty it (even after a few months). I would never buy one of those if I could help it.
 
max 02 said:
Long shot…

You say dexcool. And I’m a bit surprised you didn’t swap it out for something else. I use factory dex, because I didn’t want to take a chance flushing it out and not doing a good job.
people hate it for one reason or the other. Keep it fresh and only dex and it should be fine.

You never mixed in anything else did you? Not saying you did but it will gell with non dex.
Click to expand...
Dexcool works great as long as you keep it pure dexcool + water. That's all I use in my Chevys. All those corroded intakes are because people mixed the green stuff in. Keep it pure dexcool and it works great. I don't even like using the Prestone Dexcool, I usually order the AC Delco stuff.
 
Truckman4life said:
It could be flowing the water too fast even and not getting proper heat transfer.
Click to expand...
That's possible, if the tubes are too big it isn't pulling the heat from the middle (laminar flow) area, only the non laminar flow that's touching the tubes is getting cooled.

I don't know much about radiator design, but I did learn a lot about heat exchangers in the Navy. Regardless, the Mishimoto is crap, the stock one is staying in for now.
 
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