Don't try to line a gas tank yourself

This fuel tank is out of an early model show car 1930's-1940's vintage. It looked fantastic from the outside, high gloss black paint, very smooth for an old tank. The complaint was it was clogging up fuel filters so the customer sent it to us to clean out.

This is what we found inside after the tank went through our boil out tank. That is tank liner coming off in sheets plugging up the fuel system. Also the outside was full of bondo (no wonder it looked so good!)

 This is a shot inside the tank itself the brownish white is the liner peeling away from the tanks inner surface (this would not have happened if this was done by a professional and had been cleaned and prepped properly). This is a white variety of tank liner that sells over the counter and that leads me to believe this tank was done by a novice.

This tank has two baffles in it to keep the fuel from sloshing about. That also makes it hard to clean and almost impossible to get liner out of. The choice now with this tank is to build the customer a new one.

We used thick material for this build 12gauge. After the tank has been welded together and pressure tested we lined it to keep the rust out.

And here we have the finished tank ready for install. Please if you are thinking of getting your gas tank cleaned and lined don't try to do it yourself it will cost you money in the long run. We don't line tanks unless we have to and a lot of tanks don't really need lining, only a qualified person who has experience in tank restoration can make that call.

If you have any questions or need help with your fuel system please give us a call we are always glad to help. David
 http://www.intermountainradiator.com

Industrial Gen-Set Recore

This radiator belongs to the Local NAVEL Station here in San Diego. After we picked this radiator up for service and found that the sea air did the worst and rotted the fins and tubes in the core.

Notice how I can stick my finger into the fins of this core. You shouldn't be able to do this. So this means that as long as the tanks and side straps are in good shape we can recore this unit saving our military thousands of dollars on a new radiator.

 This is a before and an after on the radiator tanks and side straps. They get sanded down prepped and a fresh coat of protective paint is applied.

Here is a good before and after on the completed radiator core.

I would guess that this job saved the customer $5,000.00 - $9,000.00 dollars. Maybe we can help you with you heavy duty industrial radiator? Call us or visit our web site. We are always glad to answer questions and help out how ever we can. We are cooling system professionals that have dedicated our lives to our chosen profession, we strive to be of service the best way we know how.
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Sugar in your gas tank

Ever had someone tell you that you can get back at someone by putting sugar in their fuel tank of there car?
Well it can stop the car from running by plugging up fuel lines but sugar really doesn't dissolve in gasoline.

Here is the poisoned fuel tank. Notice the sugar on the cardboard. Does it look like it dissolved to you? This tank was sent to the shop by one of our customers in a dealership.

Looks like someone was mad at this person they used close to five pounds of sugar, this is what we pulled out and there was more where that came from. After we pulled out as much of the offending substance as we could the next step is to dunk the fuel tank in our hot caustic tank and that cleans the rest of it up.

The fuel sending unit we sent back and instructed the customer to replace it as we couldn't guarantee the cleanliness of the sock filter there on the end or if the fuel pump that is also part of the apparatus would function and pump fuel like it is supposed to.

If this happens to you and you believe that someone sabotaged your fuel tank, don't drive or start the car as this can move the sugar crystals around and will make a bigger mess to clean up. Call your local radiator shop for assistance, or contact us we are always happy to lend a hand. David
http://www.intermountainradiator.com

Industrial Intercooler

This is a intercooler off of a large over the road truck. We routinely clean, repair and recondition these as part of our daily work flow. This one was sent to us with the complaint that it was plugged up.

We start off by using a saws all to cut the tank off of the cooler as we couldn't get water to flow through.

Our shop does lots of coolers and this one has to be one of the worst I've seen.

It was so plugged up that we couldn't clean it with out destroying it in the process. It looked like the oil in the system had turned to carbon, it was a plastic like compound. This cooler had to be replaced.
Have a question? Give us a call we are glad to help out.
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The best radiator available

Do you know how to choose the right radiator for your car, truck, heavy equipment ? There are many options when choosing the right radiator to cool your application. Having a freind in the radiator business that knows what they are doing is key. In this post I will explain what a MX style core is and why its better than the average off the shelf radiator.
The above photo shows two radiators side by side one is a four row and the other is a three row. Do you know which  one will cool better? If you guessed the four row you would be very mistaken. The three row pictured will cool 30-40% better than the four row. Why is that? Well things to consider in the equation are size of tubes, fin count, tube spacing, fin construction.

In the above picture the core on the right is the MX high performance radiator core. Look at how many tubes there are in comparison to the standard core on the right, there are 4.5 tubes on the right core per every 2 inches verses 6 tubes on the left. This means more tubes to carry more fluid.

Here is the MX radiator core on the right notice the tubes are wider 5/8 inch verses 1/2 inch and there are more of them closer together than the standard core. Wider tubes means more surface area of the liquid is being cooled.

Next variant is fins per inch, the standard core usualy has 12 fins per inch, where the MX core has as many as 16 fins per inch.
 So the heat from your engine is transferred by the liquid in your cooling system to the radiator through the tubes, to the fins and away from the radiator by moving air across the fins. More and bigger tubes, better fin count and tube spacing all play a role in how a radiator transfers heat.
There are many other types of radiator cores and construction types that are made for specific applications. A earth mover has a different core than a conventional automobile and so does a large over the road truck. Picking a good radiator shop with a knowledgeable staff can help you cool off your vehicle. Call an expert for advise when it comes to cooling systems. We are here to help and love to answer your questions.
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Do you have an infestation ?

If you live in an area that supports a rodent population than you run the risk of getting a rodent infestation in your automobile, which can make the vehicle unbearable to drive due to the Oder that the rodents leave behind from urine and feces. This is the story of a rodent infestation and how we solved the smelly situation.

The above vehicle is a newer model Chrysler Town & Country mini van. Our customer lives in Alpine California which is in San Diego county the third-most-populous county in California, just behind its northern neighbors Orange and Los Angeles and it also ranks fifth in the united states over all. Alpine is higher in  elevation than San Diego city sitting at 1841 feet above sea level.  Alpine has a lot more trees and ground cover and is in a cooler, wetter climate than San Diego and has a lot less population density and so it supports more wild life.
Our customer called and complained of a bad smell coming from his vents inside the car. He asked if we could do some thing about the smell and I told him that we deal with this situation on a regular basis.

So our customer brought in his mini van and we started the process. Upon preliminary diagnosis we made the decision that flushing chemicals through the vent system wouldn't be good enough we would have to pull out the entire heater-A/C box (Plenum box) and clean the pieces individually.  The first thing we had to do was rip out the Plenum box from the mini van (this was a big job).  The above photo shows the van with  Plenum box already out and on the ground.

Here's a picture of the top of the box and the evaporator core (the evaporator is what the A/C uses to produce cold air).  Notice the white paper covering the evaporator core ? That was where the rat or rat's were living making a nest there. The rat's get into your vehicle through the outside fresh air vent which they usually chew through. Rat's can also make a mess out of your wiring, they love to chew through wiring.

This is a picture  of the blower motor cover notice the feces in the bottom ? There was a lot of feces we found and the smell was very bad. Also our customer has a medical condition that involves his breathing so he can't stand the smell of a lot of things chemicals included, so we decided to replace the parts where the rat was living. Most of the time we have chemicals we use to clean out the parts that are infected but the stuff has a chemical smell and we were afraid that the rat urine and feces had soaked into the plastic parts making them useless.   

This picture above is most of the parts we had to replace, the plenum box on the table and the rest of the plenum box parts are lined up across the wall. Total cost of replacement parts was about $1200.00 plus labor. We had to purchase the majority of the parts from the dealer which  made the cost expensive.

I've heard tell that Irish Spring bath soap bars will keep the rodents away they don't like the smell. You cut the bars into pieces and spread them around and on your vehicle especially in the engine compartment, keep them away from hot surface's though ( this is hear say from a friend so don't quote me but he claims it does work ).  The other option to prevent infestation could be to bait the area with traps or sticky traps if you keep the vehicle parked, also you can call an professional exterminator they could have some more tricks up their sleeve that I don't know.If you suspect a infestation you can check under your hood for rodent feces and snail shells, they love to eat snails. If you have a motor home look for chew marks in the wood surfaces leading into the interior of the cab. If you have a rat problem you will notice the smell first most likely. The next step would be to call your local radiator or A/C shop and ask them if they have experience in rodent infestation and what they do to rid the car of the smell, if they are in the know they will offer to clean the vehicle out with special cleaner that foams up in your vents, or they may have to pull you plenum box and do a more thorough job as we had to with this customer. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to give us a call we are always happy to help and can point you in the right direction.


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Fixing your cars plastic tank radiator

I just ran on to a post on instructables.com someone was asking how to fix a plastic tank on his car's radiator http://www.instructables.com/answers/How-To-Repair-A-Car-Radiator-Leak-In-The-Plastic-A/
Me being a radiator man and taking my craft seriously I had to post a reply. There were reply's with all kinds of answers to this persons question  none of which will work to fix his plastic tank.

This is a picture of a crack in a plastic radiator tank. This is the inlet tank of the radiator (their the one's that ALWAYS crack) The inlet tank receives the hot coolant from the motor and the inlet tank cracks behind the inlet connection as shown in the photo,  The outlet tank almost never cracks it's the one that get's the least heat and wear and tear.

A new tank pictured above that we can install onto a radiator is the only way to permanently fix a crack in a tank other than replacing the radiator entirely. I have never seen any other method work for more than a few hundred miles or a week or two. And that's because there's nothing on the market that will vulcanize with the tank material to cause a permanent repair, also the tank it's self is degeradated to the point of causing the crack in the first place so your trying to repair something that is beyond it's life span. The normal life span of a plastic radiator inlet tank is 7-10 years or around 100k miles. Some people get lucky and with the right circumstances I've seen tanks last a long, long time, but that's not the norm in the industry.

So here's what happens. You pull the radiator out of your car clean out a groove on the crack, wire brush it real good, clean it with acetone or some other cleaner, try to isolate the crack with wire ties and then spread $15.00 worth of JB weld or some other epoxy on it, by the time your done you've spent 4 hours and $50.00 worth of supply's on trying to fix it. Reinstall the radiator on your car and run it for a week or so just to find that sure enough it leaks again (and it will). After 31+ years in this industry and trying every thing that's come out to fix plastic tanks including  my own inventions, I haven't seen anything that works. ( in the late 80's when the plastic tanks first came out we had nothing to repair them with including new tanks! new tanks were not available yet!) So we tried everything you can imagine and some you can't.

 The answer is complete replacement. The new complete radiators you can buy now days are so inexpensive that it has made tank replacement obsolete on all but the big industrial radiators and the most expensive automotive applications which is unfortunate for the radiator shops as we used to make good money changing plastic tanks, but alas everything changes.

 If you know of a technique that works to really repair a plastic radiator tank I would love to hear from you, and as always if you have any questions please give us a call we are always happy to help.
If you can't afford to replace your radiator I suggest adding water to your cooling system and saving your money till you can get it fixed. Also if the leak is real big don't drive your car with it leaking as this can and will cause engine damage from loss of coolant.
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