My turn at a new radiator

While doing an oil change I noted the bottom plastic tank seemed ... moist. And so I started looking at what I could see of the fins. The bottom of the fins are all wet.

And as an added bonus, I noticed the cap had begun to rust.

What's "funny" is that well over a year ago while driving at night the truck began to overheat just as we were pulling into somewhere to eat. It cooled down while we ate, we poured in the rest of our drinking water bottles and drove home without incident and it's been fine ever since.

So I'm pretty sure I caught this before the next time that happened ... between the radiator and overflow tank it consumed nearly a gallon.

I can get a

$152 Denso 2213138 Denso 221-3138 Radiator

Denso 2213138 for $128 from Amazon or $130 from Rockauto. I'm inclined to go with Rockauto because they don't play games with pricing like Amazon does. "Free" shipping with Prime? That's a joke.

Rockauto has a bunch of other brands I don't recognize. And their top-o-the-line is a Koyo for another $35 or so. Not sure that's worth it for an additional 6 most warranty (18 vs 12 for the Denso.) $176 at O'Reilly's.

 

That rust doesn't look good, might wanna block test it too

 

I would normally say to do a cooling system flush, but since you're replacing the rad already you might consider opening the block drains to really get all the coolant out, and refill with fresh green stuff (or toyota coolant of you want to splurge a little).

Wouldn't hurt to fill with tap water first and run it around the block a couple times, then drain and refill with good coolant, but with a clean radiator a lot of the gunk is being removed anyhow

 

Don't reckon I'll try to open any block drains on a vehicle this old. But I do like the idea of filling with just water first and then re-doing it with the mix.

I also think it's a safe bet that rust is only from the old cap. I likely ran it with too-high of a water mix since last time.

 

I just replaced mine 2 days ago. I purchased the Carquest Premium radiator from advance auto parts. I figured if there was ever a need to do a warranty replacement, I'd rather deal with a local company. The radiator fit perfect, no problems lining up the 4 mounting bolts. I also added a tru cool transmission cooler. what ever direction you decide to go with purchasing the radiator, it's not a very difficult job. If your replacing the thermostat, make sure you place the jiggle valve at the six o'clock position. I almost forgot, I received a 25% off online from advance, order online, pickup at local store.

 

X2 with this idea,

You definitely have not been taking care of your cooling system with that much rust showing.

You definitely need to get as much rust out of your system, draining it will get most of it but there will
be plenty in the block and in the heater core.

Maybe drain everything and refill with water a few times running it hard to get the water
moving through before replacing the radiator.

All that rust is made up of lots off metal particles coming off the block that are flowing in the system and actually act like sandpaper going through the aluminum heads wearing the aluminum down.
I’ve seen photos of the aluminum heads of the water jackets area actually worn completely through the heads from rust in the antifreeze.
Went rust is this bad from neglect it’s probably impossible to get it cleaned.

I would say from here forward flush your system every year and expect or replace the radiator again at sometpoint because of the amount of rust that will continue grow and to haunt your system.
Rust never sleeps and doesn’t just disappear once it’s set in