Radiator Revisited

Well my 01 Cruiser's (64,000 miles) radiator and thermo were leaking. Picked
up a local thermo at the dealer and order an Asian radiator for $99.00 off
e-bay. A local cooler specialty shop did the work for $200 less than the
dealer.

They found the radiator had been installed improperly mostly leading to its
failure. BUT, they had to flush out my motor coolant twice because of all
the dirt they found in the system. Very unusual they said. I have only used
mineral free water and Chrysler coolant (100,000 mile stuff).

Perhaps the factory coolant is not what it is cracked up to be (or perhaps
its that Mexican water). If you own a Cruiser you may want to flush and
change the coolant sooner than later. By the way, they found changing the
thermo much harder to do than just about any other vehicle they have worked
on; hard to get to.

Richard.

 

Oof. I wouldn't have used an Asian one.

 

Seems to be a late model Chrysler trait. 2nd gen, LH cars are known for
the difficulty of replacing the thermostats. I was happy to pay a shop
over $350 labor to replace my 2.7L LH thermostat - and after my
abandoned attemp to do it myself, I was glad to pay it. Ridiculous.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

To change plugs on the Cruiser you have to pull the throttle body. A ten min
job just became a 2 hour job. But it looks cute; right?

Richard.

 

When I swapped the timing belt/water pump/hoses/t-stat on my 3.2L LH
this past December, at least 50% of the time was tied up with screwing
around with the thermostat. I did hit upon a way to keep everything
assembled as I reinstalled: careful use of bailing wire to retain the
thermostat in the water inlet and the bolts in the same. Left these in
*just* long enough to get everything into place, then pulled the wire
out with needlenose pliers before snugging everything up.

The trouble is, I was persuaded to use a 180F thermostat (checked two
different parts catalogs) but the engine definitely takes too long to
warm up now. My gut instinct is that it should be a 195F 'stat. So I
might get to do the whole thing again...once I verify that...

:-(

--Geoff

 

Good news, Geoff - the 180° t-stat is the correct one. The engine
cooling fans in our cars are short-lived as it is. If you put in a 195°
one, they'd wear out even quicker. (You might want to read this thread
on the 300M Enthusiasts Club forums:
http://300mclub.100megs42.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4935&highlight=180+thermostat
- be sure to read the later posts in that thread or you might get the
wrong idea.)

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')