Thread: radiator leaks after ve swap

i noticed a slight smell of coolant after the initial test drive. i popped the hood but didnt see any leaks. after every drive i took since then the smell was there at the end of the drive. yesterday i opened the throttle all the way for the first time to get around a truck that was about to side swipe me. when i got home i noticed coolant on the part of the radiator where the plastic end cap (top) meet the aluminum. i swaped the radiator today for one from a g20 (was happy to see how much thicker it was) and at the end of the day it started doing the same thing.

im starting to wonder if the w/p on the ve is too much for these radiators but i cant find anyone with the same problem. every time i rev the engine coolant comes out. i dont really want to spend the money right now on an aluminum radiator and fans, but also concerned about buying another radiator and busting that one. anybody else run in to the similar problem?

my jeep used to do that, i just crimped thoses little tabs down a little bit more and it held for a while. im pretty sure that the ve has a little bit more w/p but not enough to make a good radiator leak, i think what you are running into is the radiators that you have tried are getting bad and they might have leak when then were hooked up to a de but not enough to be noticeable. when you hooked them up to the ve, the ve's w/p made the leak more noticeable.

just my 2cents

thats my hope. ill probably go to the junk yard and get another to see if i have better luck.

This is a funny thread. You got a VE, but are throwing in used radiators.

there are alot of people with the stock radiators. the stock unit is enough to cool it (and had done fine but started leaking). im not planning on taking it to the track any time soon. the g20 rad was at one of my customers so i picked up. once i get back from vacation i think im just gonna go with a godspeed aluminum, but i still need to read up a bit more on them.

Well the ve pump is a bit higher flow, and to be honest with you my ve with the stock crank and wp pulley would spew coolant past the radiator cap (brand new btw) when reved to 8k, it got coolant everywhere. im assuming this only happens again if you take the engine to redline. Mine did the same. I just let the coolant run about maybe 1 quart low and it stopped doing it. Engine still ran plenty cool with only one 1200 cfm flexalite fan on a stock se-r radiator (thin one). Every time before i tried to fill the system back up it would just do the same thing.

This is because past 6k the ve wp cavitates badly which builds very high pressure in the cooling system. You really need to get at the very least a Greg V water pump pulley to take care of this. They are like 40.00 bucks brand new. Well worth it. They are about 33% larger which will be perfect for keeping the cavitation from happening even all the way until 8.5k rpms. Either that just again let the system run about 1 qt low or just until it stops leaking out when reved that high. Mine worked perfectly that way.

this is actually what im doing now, i dont drive very far and im always looking for any signs of overheating. i think ill be fine for now, but i am not comfortable being low on coolant. so ill be getting an alluminum rad and if i have the pressure problem ill figure it out. maybe a z cap.

Sorry to be this way, but is cavitation not when the pressure drops too low in certain areas and vapor bubbles form as a result? It is the same effect that causes bubbles to appear after a propeller underwater. Now explain to me how this causes a higher pressure in the system .

The higher pressure is just due to the pump (and routing in the block???) being different I would bet.

well that would still cause a buildup of pressure in other areas. It only does this at high rpms, mine did it when i would rev pas 7700 or so with the stock water pump pulley. As far as that goes cavitation is defined as when the water pump is spinning soo fast that it actually stops flowing coolant but its still gonna create pressure. that is the only way to describe it.

I would assume that when the coolant level gets low enough the water pump can still move coolant around because there is room in the system. I would think this would do it more if the thermostat is not yet fully open. there is just nowhere for it to go and its trying to flow soo much coolant at that high rpm with nowhere to go but out the cap.

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