I bought a brand new radiator for a Diesel Mercedes ('87 300D Turbo). A mechanic replaced the engine on the car and intalled the radiator. He says the bolt that held on the fan was longer than it should have been for the replacement engine and the fan wobbled and touched the radiator when he drove it around the block after the work was done. This brand new radiator now has the the shape of the spinning fan pressed in to it. It poked two tiny holes in it and he said he would pay to have it fixed. That is $45 at a local radiator shop. That radiator guy told me on the phone he would be able to comb the heat sinks back into shape. But when he saw it, he said it is risky to bend the fins back because it could create more holes. In the radiator bath when testing it, it was clearly leaking in just two places. He send he would use some "substance" to fix the radiator, not a TIG welder because the Aluminum is too thin.
I have two questions:
1) Do bent fins (which reduce airflow) have a tremendous impact on cooling capacity? (To describe more precisely how bent they are: I would say in most areas of impact (which creates a complete circle) there is between 1" and 2" of mashed fin damage (as measured from the outermost portion of where the fan could possibly touch toward the "axle"/center of the fan. This particular engine can't handle an overheating very well...it cracks the head/blows gaskets almost immediately, so I would really like a perfectly functioning cooling system.)2) In areas where the radiator is not currently leaking, am now I much more likely to have leaks down the road? For example, maybe it is very thin in some areas now and almost broken, but not leaking _yet_.
Should I just replace this radiator?
Thanks! Michelle