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MG MGB Technical - Weepy Radiator

Hi
Apart from installing a new radiator, mine is showing signs of a small leakage and losing some coolant, is there anything out there that will offer a partial cure to tide me over for the time being? 1987 elect. fan type
si robathan

1978, I presume. Where from? Where the header tank top is soldered to the base (ditto at the bottom of the rad) should be capable of being repaired fairly easily, but even so after two subsequently failed attempts on my V8 I changed it. Where the tubes are soldered to the base plates and any holes in the tubes is theoretically possible, but you would really need to get the surfaces very clean and shiny before solder would take. Many many years ago I had a pin-hole develop in a tube on a Mini rad, poured in a bottle of Holts rad weld and never had any more trouble with it. But a pal put Barrs Leaks in his Rover 2200 rad and suffered from overheating afterwards, took it to a rad place who unsoldered the header tank and rodded out the tubes, getting a load of gunk out of them.
PaulH Solihull

And then again Paul
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=3739
Stan Best

I like that Stan!

I have owned many old cars over the years, in my younger days because I had no money and nowadays because I want to own them, which means I have no money. I have used Barrs in many of the cars with no ill effects. Flush the radiator and get it as clean as possible and then whack Barrs into it. Should keep you going until you have the money to replace the radiator.

My 2 cents worth.

Tony
Tony Oliver

Never had much success with Barr's, although I was raised with it. Clog things up, but frequently not the leak, Pretty messy too! I have found Aluma-Seal, Silver Seal etc better. These are a small plastic tube with a silver or rarely brown flaky substance. I only use a bit of it; half the tube in my big truck system (about 10 gal US capacity). So long as I used the truck constantly, about once a year was sufficient; if I let it sit for a month it would often leak and require another half tube. The truck had a bad rad when I bought it, and still had it when I parked it 12 years later.

A story akin to the linked submarine one:
I was acquainted with an inner city pastor, who had three impoverished C1900 churches in Philadelphia, and no funds. Only one of the churches was in regular use, but he tried to conduct services in all three for Christmas, for the older members. So, the heat was shut off in the other two. When he attempted to fire the boilers, on Christmas Eve, he found that the hot water boiler in one had frozen and was full of cracks. A friend and I were called to help. This boiler was such that you could walk inside it, and every cast iron section had cracks top to bottom, some of them more than 1/4" wide, maybe 15 major cracks. We pronounced it DOA, but Rev. Frank said the show must go on. He had been a physicist in the US Navy before his calling, and had some distant memory regarding fixing such leaks, maybe the sub story. He also had an idea that ground black pepper might work, so we were dispatched to buy all the black pepper we could find in Philadelphia on Christmas Eve, long before the time of convenience stores on every corner. For some reason, Mom and Pop stores in Chinese and Korean neighborhoods had big cans, and we scored about 10 pounds of the stuff. We started filling the boiler and with considerable difficulty introducing the pepper into the system. We watched in utter amazement as the leaks stopped, about a foot below the rising water level. Then we fired the boiler and saw not one leak as the church heated up, toasty for next morning's service. That system never leaked any water in the next year or two, when I left the area.

I have since used pepper on cooling systems with 100% success, maybe a tablespoonful in a car. I had forgotten this when I started using the Aluma-Seal, but it looks very like black pepper that has been spray painted silver.

FRM
FR Millmore

Pepper, and even a raw egg, have been old reliable ways of sealing cooling system leaks for many years. When I first heard of these solutions, some 40 years ago, I took it with a grain of salt. However, they do work. RAY
rjm RAY

Pepper and Faith FRM! Reminds me of the story of the bar owner wanting to extend his business. The Church across the road were against this and took him to court. The congregation lost the case, so the bar owner went ahead with his plans to expand. The Church members met every night to pray earnestly for a halt to the new bar opening.Comes the opening day, but the new bar unfortunately burnt down overnight! Now, the bar owner knew about the prayer meetings and so takes the Church to court, saying they had a hand in the destruction. In court the minister and the members swear they had nothing to do with the sad demise of the bar. The judge says', This is a difficult case, on the one hand I have one non-Christian bar owner, whom believes in the power of prayer, and on the other, a whole congregation that does not! Mike
J.M. Doust

It's all depends how much work you want to put in. I soldered leaking tubes years ago on an Escort and Avenger radiators. It was surprisingly easy, I pressurised the radiator, put it in a bath and marked the leaks with a crayon. Cleaned up the spot, put some flux on and used a gas torch and plumbers solder.
c cummins

Aha. Raw egg. I tried it 40 years ago and ended up with poached egg. Nobody told me to put the egg in when the water was still cold!

Tony
Tony Oliver

You learn something new every day. Unfortunately, you forget 2 things every day. You just can't win. RAY
rjm RAY

This thread was discussed between 12/11/2011 and 15/11/2011

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