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Help I got a radiator leak, I hit a bird at about 120 (km/h) and the little put a hole in the radiator. How can I fix this cheaply, I have tried some stopleak stuff but it does nothing.

I heard a rumor that if you put a small packet of black pepper in the coolant it will stop the leak ?

Has anyone ever heard of this working ?

Dont mess around.

www.radiator.com

If you visit the place directly it should cost about 110.

Its bad news you decided to use stop leak, that stuff can plug all the coolant passages in your engine and damage the water pump too. Plus it seals the thermostat edges and the little weep hole so its almost impossible to bleed air from the system.

The other option is to remove it and take it to a radiator shop. Sometimes they can solder the hole shut.

Ahh what seals the cooling passages this sounds really bad im going to flush the system the weekend and get it fixed properly.

Ciper is exactly right. Only use stopleak if you don't care about the car and need the cooling system to hold together for a few more months. And pepper?!? While you're at it, put some canola oil in your engine, too! All these methods are in dire emergencies when you have absolutely no $$$ and you need you hunk o' junk to "hold on just a little longer." Besides, if you hit a bird at that speed, no stopleak in the world will help you!

I would also be afraid of what the stop leak does to the turbo. Isnt that a coolant cooled turbo? Or is it oil?

Does coolant flow through the turbo or intercooler on that model?

The coolant does flow through the turbo and I am also worried what the stopleak is doing to my engine, I don't think I will ever use that stuff again.

I have finally found where it is leaking, one of the end tanks has a crack in it !. What supprised me is the end tanks are plastic and I have to replace the entire end tank instead of fixing the leak.

The intercooler cooling stytem is entirely seperate to the engine/turbo cooling system on my model. The intercooler hs its own pump and resivor as well as a heat exchanger located infrount of the a/c and radiator (kind of a frount mount the i/c radiator is actually quite large).

JUST BUY A NEW RADIATOR!!! Jeeze, if this is the first time you had to replace it consider yourself lucky.

Mike

whitey: Strange, my second legacy cracked the same way. Passenger side. Hairline crack that wasnt even noticable either.

Yeah the mechanic said its really common for the end tanks to crack. I guess all the heating and cooling affects the plastic coupled with the pressure variation creates a fatigue type situation and after a while they just crack all in the same sort of area.

I was supprised how easy it was to remove the radiator. It is still in really good condition the passenger side end tank has allready been replaced and the core is in excellent condition with only a few fins slightly damaged. I cant wait to get it going again I flushed the system really well so it should be going alot better.

Thanks for all the advise you guys rule

magicmike wrote:if this is the first time you had to replace it consider yourself lucky. Mike

I have a factory radiator, just flushed it out about 6 months ago, doesn't leak a drop...

damn it now I feel like a retard,,, I have about 2 bottles worth of two different kinds of stop leak products in my radiator... I have a small fracture in the end tank, I only saw this after I put that gunk (didnt work) and some other stuff in it (worked)
I have a spre radiator from a parts car...
what should I do to clean out the gunk out of my engine???