-Shivers- Hate it when one has car troubles. I had the two most important things on me go. The Transmission and an engine block. I just recently had the air compressor fixed. Overall, not cheap. I feel your pain. >.<

That is pretty horrid of a bill. Once I'm done with the radiator, I will have replaced virtually all of the coolant system for my car. If it still has trouble after that... I'm thinking of giving a send off in the key of C4.

The issue with mine, I bought it used as a 2nd Owner. I can say is this, the first owner didn't know squat on how to fix the car or maintain it. -Sigh- Luckily I only have 2k to pay off the car and about 2.5K to my mom. So all is good.

Mine had a similarly rough life before I got it. Finding that it had an arctic radiator block on it made me and the mechanics at the shop start scratching our heads. Never expected to see one of those things... ever.

What's this "sub zero mod"?.. cardboard on front of radiator?.. So apparently you didn't take the heads off. New radiator is a lot cheaper than another engine. New, used or get that one cleaned(rodded) if it's otherwise good. Sure sounds like it only gets hot when the thermostat opened and the blocked radiator wouldn't cool it down. Hope you get it figured out n fixed!

You're close. It's a very large piece of plastic with a small, golfball sized hole in front to only let in a very small amount of air. It's used in areas where it would be all too easy to freeze the radiator by just driving, like Alaska, Northern Michigan or most of Canada. It was actually designed to be used with the car, which is why I didn't spot it for so long.

Yeah, it's only once the thermostat opens that it starts getting hot. The mechanics at the shop suspected that it might happen, but they probably didn't expect it after less than 20 miles.

Sometimes here in Iowa we cover up the radiator, but that only works if it's never going to heat up and it's like 10 below zero. I have seen cop cars in Houston that were only 4 years old and already had 20 pounds of extra minerals in the radiator. It's the hard water they used. If you use even cheap drinking water and 60% antifreeze you should be fine, and change it at least in 4 years, they recommend every 2 . With electric cooling fans, they don't come on until about 220F and if the radiator is plugged or limed up it will go hot fast and not come down. I had a few here recently that worked fine on short trips in town but a steady drive down the freeway it would keep climbing. A new clean radiator fixed them both. and if you want to use the A/C you'll need one that works perfectly, as you are adding a bunch of heat to the front evaporator core and need the fan to run all the time or the A/C fan to work right. Some radiators can be flushed if the core is fine and not too plugged. When it gets warm and the thermostat opens you should feel cooler water in the hose going back to the engine and hotter from it. If it's still hot coming from the radiator, it's not cooling.

That's what we determined while we were at the mechanic's shop flushing the radiator. I have a new one on the way. OE grade. It'll be in on Tuesday and I'll be putting it in then.

Great! Hope it's all fixed soon. Just remember to burp the air outta it. Get it warm and loosen a few hoses a little, but sounds like you got somebody who hopefully knows all this.

Yep. My very awesome little brother. Now if he and I could get our dad to keep his mits off... he's fucked my travel plans with his tinkering only to find out that he was wrong (again) and he should have listened to me and my bro. I'll be taking care to get all of the air out both in fill procedure (thanks for the link before) and in running to get it all out and never have to worry about it again.