all metal radiator failure

Have it resoldered. Small leaks are always better than sudden catastrophic failures.

Gary

I've never had a metal radiator fail, but nothing is infallible, perhaps it was a manufacturing defect. The reason I hate the plastic radiators is when they fail, they fail catastrophically and empty your entire coolant supply before you realize anything has happened.

That's possible. I bought an all-metal one and discovered that with a little too much twisting (to position a small hose) one of the nipples pulled partially out. The dealer replaced it for free, though. What the others are saying has merit too, however: metal rads rarely fail catastrophically, while plastic ones often do, at least when they are old.

I did resolder the radiator the output at the bottom was too loose as the solder fell through ,did a fine job on that though .There was little solder to start. With casing or frame was different it was not the right shape to fit around the curves of the railing where the small return tank nipple is so reshaping it to a closer fit and carefull soldering fixed it up .Your right when the pastics go they completely go but often if you clean the plastic out of the hose you will still have enough inlet pipe to drive carefully to where you need to go if you just lossen off the refill cap a little thats what I did when my plastic tank went .

Hmmm... mine dates from 1990 AFAIK. What's "old" in this context and are there early warning signs to watch for?

That's running on borrowed time for sure. I've seen them last longer, but I've seen much younger ones fail. I would personally not run one for more than 10 years. There's really nothing to watch for, that's the problem, everything is fine and then a hose nipple snaps clean off or the tank splits apart. The plastic heater control valves in the 700/900 series are prone to this as well, and I suspect newer models use something similar.

Thanks to all for the heads-up on this.