A friend of mine used to work as a mechanic at a local dealership when he was younger. Later he branched out into other ventures, but has always wanted to open his own shop. With modern equipment.
There are not a lot of shops in this area that are cutting edge. Lots of good mechanics, but most of them are more or less old school.
My friend got an opportunity to open one when a local shop became available.
So far its gone well. He prides himself on being able to give hard quotes for most problems and bring them in as quoted or less.
He really works at diagnostics.
Fellow he knew brought in a 2003 GM truck with a 5.3 engine. Engine ran good, no problems except it overheated. Badly.
Another shop had worked on it for a while, finally told him he needed a new engine. He did not understand how an engine could run as well as this one and need to be replaced, so he brought it to my friend.
It kicked his butt.
He discovered that it needed head work, due to having been run hot. Pulled the heads, took them to a local cylinder head specialist. They confirmed warping, but they cleaned up well.
Put the heads back on, the truck ran hot.
Checked the thermostat, water pump, both for rotation and flow. Fan clutch was good. Belts were tight. The block was flushed forward and backward.
Hoses were checked, pulleys were inspected, and thermal imaging did not show any heat from slippage.
You could crank it, and watch the temp needle move steadily over. I got roped in briefly. Thermal camera showed something strange about the radiator. Different temps at different places.
Radiator was pulled and sent to a known shop. Flow test showed perfect.
Head temps were strange also. Timing was checked, Nothing in front of the radiator, we even pulled the ac condenser and moved it to one side, no help.
Meanwhile, the poor owner kept bringing stuff for his truck for them to install.
Cool air intake, new big brush guard bumper, expensive shocks. He loved this truck, and was fixing it up the way he wanted, but it still could not be run.
Finally my friend said he was ordering a new radiator. He said that even though his was clean and a flow test showed good, it had to be the problem. He said that if that did not fix it, he would eat the cost himself. He said he was beginning to worry that the motor really was bad somehow.
That fixed it!.
As soon as the truck was filled with coolant, it came up to normal temp and stayed there.
I walked up, three guys were standing staring at a radiator. It looked good to me. Nice and clean, but there had to be something.........
One of the mechanics picked it up, shook it, and just for the heck of it started blowing into the different ports. When he tried to blow into the overflow/pressure tank fitting, nothing happened.
Except his eyes bugged out a little.
This is the port that the hose between the radiator and the overflow tank hooks to. This truck, like a lot of newer ones, has a radiator cap on the overflow tank, and it is part of the pressure system.
He pulled a small pocket screwdriver out, and tried to insert it into the hose port. It stopped about the level of the side of the tank.
Somehow the fitting was completely stopped up.
He tried to push it through whatever was stopping it up, and it would not go. He kept wiggling and pushing, and finally he got it through, but it was tight.
They took the radiator apart. Black plastic tanks, aluminum core.
Everything in there was clean and shiny. All the tubes were clean, no oil or grease even.
The only weird thing, was that overflow fitting. The hole in the fitting where the hose hooks on, is probably 3/8 to 1/2 in in diameter.
But, if you look on the inside of the tank, that hole does not go all the way into the tank. Instead, its a smooth piece of plastic with a tiny hole, maybe 1/8 inch into the tank.
From what we can figure, something stopped up that tiny hole, and as a result, the residual air in the system had nowhere to go.
Or maybe the system got a vacuum pulled on it from the pressure forcing its way into the tank, and not letting water back out and it let air get sucked in.
What ticks me off about the whole thing, no one slid a screwdriver into the new radiator port to see if it was a full size hole or not.
As far as we can tell, this was the original radiator in this truck. And seemed to work fine with the tiny hole until something lodged into it.
Here is my question: Does anyone have a radiator like that laying around? If so, look into, or stick a stick or something into that port and see if its full size all the way in.
My personal opinion is that is supposed to be and this one was defective from the factory.
Or it might be a way to help vent air out. There is not a lot of water that flows through that port, and with a small hole, it might create a fast flow that helps suck air out. Either way, I suppose it could work fine until something stopped it up.
I don't think I have looked into one of those ports that hooks to a remote pressure tank. I have seen several that go into a plain overflow tank, and they were all full size.
There are not a lot of shops in this area that are cutting edge. Lots of good mechanics, but most of them are more or less old school.
My friend got an opportunity to open one when a local shop became available.
So far its gone well. He prides himself on being able to give hard quotes for most problems and bring them in as quoted or less.
He really works at diagnostics.
Fellow he knew brought in a 2003 GM truck with a 5.3 engine. Engine ran good, no problems except it overheated. Badly.
Another shop had worked on it for a while, finally told him he needed a new engine. He did not understand how an engine could run as well as this one and need to be replaced, so he brought it to my friend.
It kicked his butt.
He discovered that it needed head work, due to having been run hot. Pulled the heads, took them to a local cylinder head specialist. They confirmed warping, but they cleaned up well.
Put the heads back on, the truck ran hot.
Checked the thermostat, water pump, both for rotation and flow. Fan clutch was good. Belts were tight. The block was flushed forward and backward.
Hoses were checked, pulleys were inspected, and thermal imaging did not show any heat from slippage.
You could crank it, and watch the temp needle move steadily over. I got roped in briefly. Thermal camera showed something strange about the radiator. Different temps at different places.
Radiator was pulled and sent to a known shop. Flow test showed perfect.
Head temps were strange also. Timing was checked, Nothing in front of the radiator, we even pulled the ac condenser and moved it to one side, no help.
Meanwhile, the poor owner kept bringing stuff for his truck for them to install.
Cool air intake, new big brush guard bumper, expensive shocks. He loved this truck, and was fixing it up the way he wanted, but it still could not be run.
Finally my friend said he was ordering a new radiator. He said that even though his was clean and a flow test showed good, it had to be the problem. He said that if that did not fix it, he would eat the cost himself. He said he was beginning to worry that the motor really was bad somehow.
That fixed it!.
As soon as the truck was filled with coolant, it came up to normal temp and stayed there.
I walked up, three guys were standing staring at a radiator. It looked good to me. Nice and clean, but there had to be something.........
One of the mechanics picked it up, shook it, and just for the heck of it started blowing into the different ports. When he tried to blow into the overflow/pressure tank fitting, nothing happened.
Except his eyes bugged out a little.
This is the port that the hose between the radiator and the overflow tank hooks to. This truck, like a lot of newer ones, has a radiator cap on the overflow tank, and it is part of the pressure system.
He pulled a small pocket screwdriver out, and tried to insert it into the hose port. It stopped about the level of the side of the tank.
Somehow the fitting was completely stopped up.
He tried to push it through whatever was stopping it up, and it would not go. He kept wiggling and pushing, and finally he got it through, but it was tight.
They took the radiator apart. Black plastic tanks, aluminum core.
Everything in there was clean and shiny. All the tubes were clean, no oil or grease even.
The only weird thing, was that overflow fitting. The hole in the fitting where the hose hooks on, is probably 3/8 to 1/2 in in diameter.
But, if you look on the inside of the tank, that hole does not go all the way into the tank. Instead, its a smooth piece of plastic with a tiny hole, maybe 1/8 inch into the tank.
From what we can figure, something stopped up that tiny hole, and as a result, the residual air in the system had nowhere to go.
Or maybe the system got a vacuum pulled on it from the pressure forcing its way into the tank, and not letting water back out and it let air get sucked in.
What ticks me off about the whole thing, no one slid a screwdriver into the new radiator port to see if it was a full size hole or not.
As far as we can tell, this was the original radiator in this truck. And seemed to work fine with the tiny hole until something lodged into it.
Here is my question: Does anyone have a radiator like that laying around? If so, look into, or stick a stick or something into that port and see if its full size all the way in.
My personal opinion is that is supposed to be and this one was defective from the factory.
Or it might be a way to help vent air out. There is not a lot of water that flows through that port, and with a small hole, it might create a fast flow that helps suck air out. Either way, I suppose it could work fine until something stopped it up.
I don't think I have looked into one of those ports that hooks to a remote pressure tank. I have seen several that go into a plain overflow tank, and they were all full size.
