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Radiator Stopleak


igor

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Took my Civic for a hurtle up our mates farm on the weekend to gather firewood and found that it has developed a radiator leak. Don't want to spend money replacing the rad cos the whole car is getting pretty suss. Can anyone recommend a stopleak product for a cheap survival job please? The Warehouse has a Wynns product for $15. Has anyone used this and is it any good?

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They are only designed to be a temporary fix to get you home and then you need to flush it out pretty quickly, they block radiators and water galleries and cause more harm than good if you use them for more than a bare minimum of time.

The Bars Leaks is pretty good for a temp fix but I would never use it more than the drive to get home.

Actually I would rather run the radiator cap only fitted loosely so no pressure builds up over using a stop leak.

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Yeah to reducing the pressure K-trips. Been doing that for quite a while now. I checked the water level in the rad on Saturday and absent mindedly put the cap back on all the way instead of just enough to stay on. I think that's why it developed the leak.

An AA roadside rescue serviceman once used an unknown stopleak product in my XC Falcon to "cure" a leaking frost plug cos it was the difficult to replace one behind the exhaust manifold and it ran like that for some years with no problems.

Mof, the leak appears to be in the core and given the age of the car I think it is most likely to be copper.

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we use wyns at work, gets put in with every antifeeze service, its a water pump seal lube and non clogging to radiators etc. seen it stop a few leaks in radiator tanks etc, works best when the cooling system is clean/well maintained.

I think you may have been misled, it is definitely not an additive you should be putting in with every antifreeze service. Good old Wynns sales, tell you what they think you want to hear.

Don't get me wrong, Wynns are very good products but the stop leak is not intended to be an additive.  

 

It may not clog the radiator but it can definitely block up the thermostat if there is any air in the cooling system.

 

Their website even says

Should only be used as a temporary repair for leaks

 

 

http://www.wynns.co.nz/wynns-product.php?n=1&g=1&s=3&id=211

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briax sealwell. i think you can get it from bnt and repco. 

 

horrid shit. blocks things up. but patches little holes in radiators all good. hah

my gravel bashed has a lower mount peg cracked and used to drop about a litre an hour with zero pressure on it. half a sealwell cube and i'm yet to top it up since. 

 

it clogs the radiator a little though

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Might be on the same wavelength there Dolan. I think my Civic has less rust than Zebra Dude's Landau but only cos it's a smaller car. It'll probably fall apart sooner rather than later. That's why I don't want to spend shitloads of money on it.

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The demister doesn't work anyway since my wife got a rock through the windscreen back when it still had a warrant and some stupid cunt who thought he was helping knocked all the glass out for her. I'm still finding bits of glass ten years or more later. But yeah, a heater core does make an effective auxiliary radiator sometimes.

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yeah I dont trust the gunky shit

what does work is ground pepper, silly as it sounds. it wont fix things completely but if its a small leak the ground pepper goes into the hole and blocks it up and slows the leak, but its not going to be gummy and block up things, its small enough that it passes through the tubes etc and soft enough its not going to damage things by flying around the system.

but if you can see the leak and it is solderable or epoxyable from the ouside those would be much better more permanent solutions.

also when you run dodgy shit like this you have to remember to check your water level religiously.............

if you do sometimes you can get away with murder and no issues if you keep on top of things

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Man cooling system dramas are dumb, just fix shit or risk fucking it proper. If its the rad solder it at home at least, if its a hose fix it, if its the pump replace it, put a new cap on for good measure and keep rolling.

Yeah soldering was what I was going to suggest.

I once did a field fix where I crimped the core tube either side of the leak

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