My '68 442 came ordered with a heavy duty radiator, and needs a new one. It's leaking, and I don't see much point in trying to repair a 46-year-old radiator. I checked it the other evening, and it's a 4-core radiator. I want to replace it with the same thing, not an aluminum or plastic one. Most sites I've checked are 2-core aluminum with plastic tanks. Where is the best place (that is cheapest for decent quality) to get a brass, copper core, 4-core radiator? Any comments would be helpful.

 

Save your original and have a good radiator shop install a new 4 row core in it. It will FIT RIGHT.....which is usually not the case with replacement radiators. If it's your original it'll the cool "Harrison" logo stamped in the fill side tank and will also have the correct more-level filler neck (unlike the typical replacement radiator). Make sure they use the original top and bottom "support" rails from your old core (or get a core with those "top hat" profile rails already installed).

Might as well save the original stuff as much as possible....just have it re-cored.

 

I agree with Patton. Also, there are codes stamped into the metal tank that show the application and date. If this is the original radiator it would be nice to keep these details intact.

There's a number of threads discussing this, but here's one with some photos to help key out if you've still got the original radiator or not.

John


https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...ease-help.html

 

That's exactly what I did with my '68 4-core and it worked beautifully!

Randy C.

 

Update: I did some more checking on the internet and found a brass/copper 4-core radiator made by Murray with a lifetime guarantee at O'Reilly's online. I had my local store (is there a town anywhere that doesn't have an O'Reilly's ?) order it in, and I took my old Harrison radiator in and put one on top of the other and the new radiator is almost identical to the Harrison original. The fill cap is just a little lower than the original. It fits in perfectly, just like the original, and of course, I'll save the original for later restoration if needed. The original still had the metal tag on it, too. Thanks for the responses.

 

I forgot to mention that the radiator was only $196.xx, which I thought was a reasonably good deal.

 

Did the new one have the same number of tubes and the same number of fins-per-inch? Many replacement radiators don't and therefore do not cool as effectively as the originals.

 

Appears to be so, it has 4 cooling tubes inside and 8 double-fins per inch, like the original one. My original one is a heavy duty radiator, and I'm guessing the heavy duty one is a 4-core (or tube) radiator instead of a 3-core. Some people have told me that an aluminum 2-core radiator will cool as well or better than the original brass and copper 4-core one, but I wanted to keep the original look of the factory radiator. Also, something that confused me was that the replacement radiator had two metal bands (like shipping bands) vertically around the radiator, and I didn't know whether to cut them off, or leave them on, and of course, the twits at O'Reilly's were of no help. I left them on, I guess I can always take the off later if I was incorrect.

 

what was the part number of the new unit.??
Thanks

 

433165. It's 219.xx, but I got it for 196.89 because I have a business account there.