holts radweld, bars seal, etc

In message , Stephen writes

Naah! use Radflush and Radweld or Barseal alternately to clean, and seal leaks in succession for about a year, then go to that little back street place where they will take your radiator off and repair it while you wait, or have a walk round.

There should be one in every town if you can find it. I did.

Yer buut that crap :) will get everywhere around every knock and crannie on bearings etc not a good thing. My vote would be the head to that backstreet garage now :)

I just changed my rad on my mk4 golf was a ballache with a few seized bits and bobs but was done in about 40 minutes. It had a hole on the O/S losing coolant very very slowly but I jumped on the job before it opened up and I loose the coolant and have a breakdown

In message , Stephen writes

I should have inserted an 'elf warning in that first paragraph. I did use Radflush once in the good ole days, and had to barseal it afterwards. Never again!

The place I went to was on Shaw Heath, Stockport. The leak was actually just where the short filler neck met the top reservoir of the rad. They brazed it whilst I waited, and did a good job

Gordon H gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I know. Relying on muck to hold the coolant in is hugely preferable to having a cooling system that's actually water-tight on it's own.

Brazed, eh? Blimey, that really IS the "good ole days"...

more likely soldered. brazing heat would melt the rad first.

In message , Adrian writes

I'm now trying to remember what car it was...

-- Gordon H Remove "invalid" to reply

It didn't look like a soldering job, but I'm not going to argue against your experience. ;-)

soldering and brazing are very similar procedures, but for radiators it is usually solder. I used to mess about soldering up rads for myself years ago, but they are so cheap to buy nowadays no one would bother unless it was an emergency or something obscure. and in any case they are mainly plastic and aluminium these days which makes them much more difficult to fix.