So after tinkering around with all the "easy" stuff, took my overheating Discovery II to the mechanic for diagnosis: blocked radiator. He said the lower part of the radiator was running totally cold.

So, questions:

1. Is there any way of fixing a blockage in a radiator? That is, is there some sort of equivalent to using Stop Leak for a radiator leak, but for unblocking blockages? This may be a dumb question, not sure.

2. Has anybody written up the steps for removing and replacing the radiator on a Disco II? The mechanic said it was a 3 hour job, which seems surprisingly high to me. Just wondering if there's some extra complexity with switching out the radiator on a Disco II that I should be aware of.

Thanks,

Dan

 

The shop manual will have step by step directions so you should download it (the Rave CD). If you have a radiator shop nearby they can rod the radiator.

 

Facing the same thing myself, exactly. My hunch is that the previous owner put in some kind of "stop leak" gunk, and that's where it settled. They did wind up doing the heads shortly before I bought it, and they struck me as the type that might have tried to fix it "on the cheap" before biting the bullet and doing it right.

My local radiator shop, the really good one that is, that I've used forever even for things like cleaning out gas tanks and the like, says they don't do Disco radiators due to the plastic tanks, so the "just have it rodded out" option isn't really available. That left replacement.

Not happy about the price of radiators from the dealer, I looked around a lot, and I managed to score a new radiator (Chinese repro) with a 5 year warranty on eBay for $155 shipped from a place out of Florida. It's still sitting in the garage because it looks like from the RAVE that it is a no-kidding serious operation...

My local independent shop has offered to do it for $190, and I'm pretty close to taking them up on it. Kids, dogs, no real effective way to manage the coolant I have to drain PLUS three hours out of my at-home time... yeah, I should just pull the trigger on that.

 

follow the directions except don't take off the transmission cooler lines. Just take off the P3 SCREWS THAT HOLD THEM DOWN. Oh and take out the battery box and the air cleaner box and you can get the screws from the side.

Or you could just clean it out with a hose. much easier to try before pulling the radiator.

 

http://www.prestone.com/products/car...elect_region=1

Try a cooling system flush first.
It will set you back $10 or so, if it does not work at least you tried.