To address a few of the questions or concerns that have been made.......
1. Yes, I would still recommend this radiator. I hope my posts haven't caused anyone to shy away from this radiator as it is a good 'for the money' choice. For the most part, it is a direct bolt-in affair, but given the price point on something so seemingly labor-intensive to fabricate (LOTS of welding), you have to figure a few things may not come out quite right. And, in fairness, my dilemma with the hose-to-shroud clearance may not be the radiator's fault. Perhaps the new hose's dimensions don't exactly conform to the OE hose's? Granted, it fits both ends perfectly, but how you get from Point A to Point B is up to the manufacturer. FWIW, the hose I pulled off was a 6 month old Gates unit; the new one was a Goodyear. Slightly off-topic, but I was disappointed to find the Goodyear did NOT come with either an internal spring or reinforced walls that would negate the need for a spring, but the spring from the Gates unit transferred easily enough.
2. 'They' don't make a 4-row replacement, at least that I was able to find. I called and researched just about every possible production (i.e. NOT custom) radiator source I could find before buying this one, and it seems every one has gone to a 3-row at best. I was initially discouraged, but after reading up on how many folks have success with 3-row and even 2-row radiators in our trucks, it bothered me less and less. We could get into online debates of physics and materials engineering, but suffice it to say that the industry seems to have figured out ways to make less rows cool just as well as the higher row counts of yore thanks in large part to the use of aluminum. Initially, this left me scratching my head since I know the thermal conductivity of copper and brass is much better than aluminum, which intuitively would make you think aluminum is NOT the way to go. HOWEVER, aluminum's strength over these materials is, well, its strength. This allows for larger tubes without having to up the material thickness for wall strength like you would with copper and brass. For proof, see the pics in my first post that show the tube size difference between the two. It's also what allows systems to run at much higher PSIs than earlier brass/copper systems. It seems as though the benefits of having larger tubes quickly outweighs the benefits of the material's thermal conductivity, so much so that an entire row (or TWO!!!) can be eliminated from the equation and still net the same or better results. Whoops! Looks like I went ahead and got into the physics of it all anyway. Oh well.
3. As you may be able to tell, I did a good amount of research on this before pulling the trigger. FWIW, it seemed as though Champion/American Eagle enjoys a good rep throughout the web, including our trucks. The only IDI-specific issues I saw were repeated issues with shipping damage (hence my picking it up as a Will Call), slight fitment issues like you're reading about in this thread, and one member who reported another member's unit having developed a leak in one of the tanks. The latter seemed to have likely been caused by a bit too much leaning on the rad, which does bring up one potential weakness in these units. Because they are made of aluminum (and thin aluminum at that), it'd be best to avoid leaning/pushing on them while wrenching under the hood as you would with the OEM unit. It's going to be a hard habit for me to break, but I'm working on it. As to the fitment issues, a bend here or a trim there seems to eliminate all of them from what I can tell. As to shipping damage, well, can't help there. The guys at the shop seemed to be fully aware of the problem (I spoke with the guy who handles all the returns), but I kinda just got a shoulder shrug '**** happens' response on that one.
4. For those nervous about installing this unit (or doing the job at all, for that matter), I did a quick how-to on it here:
http://www.oilburners.net/forums/sh...r-leak-I-think/page2&highlight=radiator+think. Post #25. Hopefully it gives you a good idea of what's involved. which isn't much, really.
Mike
Very good chance I'll be ordering one of these in the next few days.
n I to settle how we are going to do this...
ON FRIDAY! .... I have to wait for her approval...
blessing
before I make a purchase like this
