little tube of ground up looking aluminum flakes. called WORLD'S BEST RADIATOR STOP LEAK. sold EVERYWHERE. Works good and lasts a long time.
raw egg, course mustard, ground-to-a-powder pecan shells. Seen my Dad use all of these and they worked. MythBusters even tried the egg thing and showed it worked.
Fixed a leak in a freeze plug with Barrs Leak until I could get home. Never replaced the freeze plug. Sold the truck three years later.
Old timers usta just cut the fins away at the top and bottom and pinch it off. My experience is that leaks are like mice..there's another one around somewhere.
When I hit a deer with my beater Cavalier, I pinched the tube with a pair of pliers and dumped a tube of Alumaseal in it. That was two years ago, and it's still holding.
like was said earlier, solder it. its really not that big a deal. if i can do it in an old dart i had at age 19 so can you. take your radiator out and pressurize it, not much, cars usually run around 19 lbs. that will show your leaks. clean the areas good and just dab the plumbers solder on. test it again so on and so on. it takes a while but at least youll be happy with the end. works well with filler necks too.
Seal-all. Avalible at stores everywhere. I've used it many times. I've even used it on hot, activly leaking radiators and it works great. http://www.eclecticproducts.com/sealall/home.asp
I used pepper before with a pin hole leak. It will only work if it's a pin hole leak though. Otherwise,if you can visually see the leak, use JB water weld. you can put it right over the leak while it's leaking and it will seal. I used it on my frankenstein project and had great results.
We used a solder gun and solder to fix a pin hole in my radiator at the Roundup last year. It held until the trip home from the Outkast X-Mas party in Jan.
Sweet, What I wound up doing... Opened the hole up a bit with a pick. shot some flux in with a syringe. Pinched the tube a bit and then soldered it with a crack torch looking thing. It's holding water. I think I'll hunt down some of that JB water weld. Sounds like a good thing for the tool box. I don't use additives. They mat fix the hole but what else are they doing? Thanks guys. RASHY
60's styles told a story about him selling a car to some guy that had a leaky carb float and him putting the tip of a wooden toothpick in it and thats what I did with my radiator last spring and its still holding! soon as it swelled up she stuck tighter than an a guy holding back 2 cups of coffee and a bran muffin
That toothpick idea is a good one. Something else to add to the toolbox. I picked up some of that watr weld. I'm gonna wait to smear any on there. I just want to see if my solder job works or not. This is all temporary anyway. I'll pull the radiator out and have it rebuilt. It's time for it as I had it custom made in 91 or so and drilled through a few fins when I was putting a shroud on it and something bit the hell out of my nether region. This makes about 5 fins that are blocked off now.
For a good road side repair I put 3 cigerettes worth of tabacco. Held until I pulled it out. This was not a pinhole leak and I had already tried: pepper, alumiseal, egg white.
Smear a little dab of Puxatony Poo on the fin. Works every time! And you can always round up some Puxatony Poo. monkey
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