Radiator
Hi all, no time to ask for advise on this one it happened so quick! Small amount of water loss, no sign of leaks, in to the garage she goes, nothing! As I was reading through the archives on GWOA I noticed a thread about a low reading on the tepreture gauge, mine never ever went above the white section, (300GD) the heater was as useless as a pre 2007 defender, I assumed this was normal for a G, and got quite used to freezing my nuts off in winter, however after reading the thread it seemed that it was not normal and the thermostat was at fault, I had it changed and low and behold the heater burst in life! Never been so warm! However this prompted the tiny leak to become a constant drip, all this whithin a couple of days, back she goes, turns out the radiator has seen better days and had a leak,not traceable until the thermostat was changed, I assume because of the higher running tempreture, no replacement rad is available so I've had to have a rad recore, it looks like a brand new rad,question is should I be worried about the rest of the cooling system, the rad had corroded even though there is quite a good record of coolant change in the sevice history,
Generally speaking there should be no problems but do inspect all the rubber hoses in the system for perished hose and renew these as a matter of course. Keep a regular check on your coolant for the next few weeks and given no coolant loss you should be fine.
Note, If you do have a loss and can not trace the loss, it could be from the water pump. A leak here is often difficult to see as it can be a self sealing leak. The pump leaks during engine warm up and it cooling down for short periods at a certain temperature but outside of that temperature it re-seals the leak.
Any way to check the water pump ...i.e. will you see water trails when you pull it?
You can still get Beru new radiators for 300GD (see below) but I got mine recored. The problem with recoring is that the steel mounts go rusty and fail, I painted my with Expoxymastic 2 part waterproof paint, then doused with Dinotrol so hopefully it will last a couple of decades;
http://www.behrhellaservice.com Behr OEM radiators with online catalogue
300GD 1988 radiator part Behr/Hella 8MK 376 709-481 … AVA
From MY: 02/1984
From Ch.No.: 003020
Core = Length: 536 mm, Width: 467 mm, Depth: 40 mm, Vehicle Equipment: For vehicles with/without air conditioning, Transmission Type: Automatic Transmission, Manual Transmission, Standard: produced by BEHR
http://www.kuehlerhandel.de/index.php?cat=c60390_Behr-Hella-Service.html&page=455
Stock Behr radiator for 400 Euro (2011) OEM 001 501 07 01
Stock Behr for 542 Euro
Wanapart £438.60 .. plus V plus D (£6.50) = £534.12 iViD
Unipart = NO
Behr number sometimes gets an AVA cross reference.. and expense £725.01 !!
230GE rads are common listing but they have no oil cooler so are wider! (633mm)
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Thanks for that guys.