After just replacing my tranny in my 85 turbo New Yorker I realized my radiator was looking pretty tough. Looked all over trying to find a copper and brass core radiator like the original. After a few hopeful leads that turned into yet just more aluminum and plastic tank radiators, I ended up buying a very inexpensive radiator from Spectra Premium.
Installed the radiator and even before starting vehicle, was leaking from lower and upper radiator hose, even though hose clamps were tight. Pulled the radiator back out to find sharp mold ridges at 180° marks around upper and lower hose inlet/outlet. Same thing on overflow tube. Ended up having to use very fine ignition files to make them round again. Then used 400 sandpaper to finish them off. The kicker of all this is the drivers tank which has the radiator outlet hose connection was made the wrong size! It was the same 1-1/4" as the top inlet hose. WTF! As a fix, they (Spectra) slid a rubber sleeve (think condom) over the 1-1/4" outlet to enlarge it to the required 1-1/2" outlet. That's just beautiful...Well, underneath this rubber sleeve was the same terrible mold ridges as the top inlet connection.
Hope to get a year or two out of this radiator before it has to be replaced. Workmanship on this radiator was not good. I haven't had very good luck with plastic tank radiators in the past in cold climates like MN during the winter, they always seem to seep a bit when it gets really cold. Time will tell I guess.
So the moral of the story is if your forced into buying one of these radiators, check those inlets and outlets for shoddy workmanship before you install it. On a scale from 1-10, I'd give it a solid 3.
Todd
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