First I thought it was the top radiator hose, but after replacing the hose, and a 300 mile run & letting it sit last night, I was blessed with the dreaded puddle of anti freeze this morning. In looking, I could see (2) streams of anti freeze running down the back face of the radiator from what appears to be an oil coolant line?? right below the top radiator hose. I'm assuming this is a manufactured part that can not be removed or serviced without tearing the radiator apart, so my question is... If I pour some Bar's Leak into the radiator to try & stop the leak, what other demons am I going to release?

 

Keep the stopz leakz in the bottle for now. That is a brass and copper radiator, I was able to pull mine out; take to a small indy shop, they unsolder a side tank, poke rods in there to knock out calcium buiildup; hot tank flush in citric acid, and solder it all back up for under $100. Oil cooler is on the battery side, tranny cooler is on the driver side (NAS).

Adding stopz leakz to a radiator with calcium in it provides a lot more tiny crevices for the stop leak to block off. Instead of a leaky rad, you'll have a 40% rad that doesn't leak.

 

I believe on the '98 it's a soldered in fitting. Earlier radiators had a soldered in bung with a male-male adapter screwed in that the oil cooler lines attached to. So check for that.
If you have the money I'd get it rodded. At its age it's probably overdue anyway. If they say it's too bad a shape you can get a heavy duty recore, but that's not cheap because of the increase in copper prices. I think I paid close to $480 (may have been $400) earlier this year.

 

Okay, I thought adding the Bar's leak might take me to another level of hell. I found oneon Craigslist which was reworked and never installed radiator from a 98 with a new Land Rover core, but they wanted some insane price for it @ $600.00. Will check to ee if there's a radiator shop in the area & see what they think.

 

Look for a small shop, edge of town near farm country, who work on tractor and industrial off road equipment radiators. They make their boat payments on those. Yours is a tea cup. Also, unlike the chain stores, their prices are not indexed to vehicle MSRP. $600 is a realistic price for a new one, if available. We have some posts for an all aluminum import that was under $240, and some members posted about them with pix and results (good so far). Any stop leak in a crudded up radiator is going to reduce cooling somewhat. But it is already reduced by the scale to a trickle, the stop leak just finishes the job and seals that tube off.

See https://landroverforums.com/forum/di...ight=radag.jpg

If flying with partz vuluez at the boneyard. one from a similar era Range Rover will work. BUT the one I got had the oil cooler side plugged up (that is what killed the donor vehicle). So do a little testing before install if going pre-owned oem (POO).

 

You need to pull out the radiator and sliver solder it.

You can see pictures of how to do this here:

1997 Land Rover replace catalytic converter and head gaskets

Pull the radiator.
Clean up the area.

Get silver solder.
Get a torch - propane plumbing torch.

Get flux.

Clean it up.
Put on flux.
Heat it.

Dip the silver solder into the flux.

Apply it to all 4 joints - the two transmisson joints.
The two oil joints.

Keep the solder OUT of the threads.

Remove the rubber O rings first too - or you will bake them.

 

I just fixed the same problem with a quikstèel (same as jb weld, only this is like clay that you have to mush around). Also the leak I have is just a hairline around the fitting. It sure beats taking the radiator out if it works for you.

 

IMHO, fixing just the leak is false economy - the rad will be old enough to need rod out.

 

A decent fix to a nail or pin hole leak in radiator is to seal using JB WELD epoxy that has been sucked into the hole using vacuum pressure. I have use this method successfully and the fix has lasted over two years and still no return of the leak!
First drain the radiator completely, flush with water, then blow air through cap and out the radiator lower hose opening to dry out. Also heat the area of the hole with a blowdryer or torch to dry the inside. Then mix the two part epoxy and spread over the hole in the radiator. Use a vacuum cleaner hose attached to the radiator cap opening with other hoses attached. You are doing it right when the thick epoxy is slowly getting sucked into the hole in the radiator without tearing apart. Stop the vacuum and add a bit more epoxy to increase thickness of epoxy. Give it at least 12hours to dry. Then refill radiator with water to check the fix. I think you will find it is fixed and you can now refill with coolant/water mix. I works because the epoxy gets attached to both sides of the hole.
Best Regards,

Desrt Roadrunner