my new favorite tool of choice for radiators

[corycouch]

you guys know ive used everything from a concrete saw, sawsall, hackzall,grinder, ive even yanked them out with an excavator, anyway for the last dozen or so ive just used a cheap pair of bolt cutters i got from harbor freight years ago, i can just pop the top hose where the plastic is with the head of the bolt cutter, cut whateever brackets are there, put the handles together and piledrive the boltcutters down onto the fan shroud and bust it up, cut the lines, then wedge the boltcutters in between the radiator and the frame and pry with the bolt cutters like a prybar, it will come up 2 to 4 inches each time, when you can reach the bottom hose just cut the clamp or pry it off, probably takes about two minutes to do the whole process, pretty good considering the first one i took out last fall with wrenches took at least20 or 30 minutes.

[Bear]

nice stack of radiators there cory

[corycouch]

thanks bear, its the most we ever had theres a couple more over by the storage container plus i still have the one from teh crawler loader, we used to have radiator and aluminum wheel days and do breakdowns, when we get around to it we will have a pretty nice payday

[c4f5]

Most of the crowd I spend my time with are derby guys, so radiators are a precious commodity in my circle, and for myself. I take the time to undo them right, unless they are already junk. But when taking them out just for the scrap....whatever method will be the most time effective.....use it.

[corycouch]

some of them are good im sure, i absolutly hate trying to sell parts cars to for that matter, its a really big hassle for a one or two man operation because we are on the go all the time, we have gotten a few contacts since we have been doing this on people that want certain items and we give a call when we think we have something they want

[Rio]

I agree Cory we will not sell parts, too much hassle. We do the same thing try and schedule a rainy day to clean rads and wheels! Love it when the 24' goose goes out loaded end to end with rads. We dont keep aluminums anymore though. after a bit of time study it was costing us more to pull and clean them than we were making. Still do a load of copper and copper aluminum a month.

[thecritta]

Does anyone know how much the aluminium/copper radiators are worth i have a big long one just sitting around at home waiting to be cashed in?
It is made of aluminium with copper pipes running through it.

[ResourcefulRecycling]

Check you local yard.

[copperhound]

Did u clean it? Clean cu/al ears bout $1.20 - $1.30

[Mechanic688]

Does anyone know how much the aluminium/copper radiators are worth i have a big long one just sitting around at home waiting to be cashed in?
It is made of aluminium with copper pipes running through it.

I would have no idea what prices would be down in Australia, judging by what others have written from across the water their prices are totally different from ours.

[myekem]

I have a suggestion too for when you go to clean them.. If you are cleaning the rads with plastic tanks, buy a pair of tile pliers. They are like a wire cutter except they have a sideways jaw with a small gap in between. We used to use a screw driver, or a hatchet, or a pair of vise-grips with a notch ground into them but the tile pliers are the quickest and easiest we have found. Pry one both ends and one side free then bend the other way and the tank pops right off, you don't need to go all the way around.

[corycouch]

We use a vise for the plastic tanks on the side, tighten the vice on the plastic with the vise just touching the metal, pull back, push forward, after a couple times it pops off flip to the other side repeat

[eesakiwi]

Often in the plastic radiator endcap there is a oil cooler tube, I think its just auto transmission cars that have them. (Jap cars?)

Its a brass tube, double walled 10-12 inches long, the ends have a threaded fitting/ hose connection that pokes thru the plastic endcap.

I have never seen a reference to them here, but if you have a lot of radiators, they will show up enough times for you to make extra money from them.
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Posted later on.
I didn't know I had a pic of them till I looked, this is two of them, to scale. >
I had a idea of using them to heat water in the wild, using a really small gas flame.

[Mechanic688]

Often in the plastic radiator endcap there is a oil cooler tube, I think its just auto transmission cars that have them.
Its a brass tube, double walled 10-12 inches long, the ends have a threaded fitting/ hose connection that pokes thru the plastic endcap.
I have never seen a reference to them here, but if you have a lot of radiators, they will show up enough times for you to make extra money from them.

On the few radiators I seen, the auto trans. lines either hook to a metal side/bottom tank.

[myekem]

Thanks cory I will have to remember the vise idea and give it a go. We sometimes clean 400 at a time lol.

[corycouch]

Okay, always experimenting and we have changed our ways on the whole process, on the removal we have went back to our air ratchet or Milwaukee 12v ratchet not because its easier but to help in our new breakdown process. At my yard I get breakage price for the plastic ends with the aluminum attached, trial and error but the final solution was a ryobi table saw we won at a pallet auction, safety glasses a must, hold the radiator at the side of the table as the pieces fly with the spin, anyway takes seconds to cut thru and the plastic just falls on the ground. You can usually tell by the fittings if you have a brass or copper tube inside on these I just cut the ends with my chop saw and let the tube fall out and just throw the ends in with the breakage, don't worry about the ones with the finned metal inside my experience is its usually but not always magnetic and am better off with the breakage price. I've done over 100 so far with the table saw, it's fast and easy just please be careful, the saw also works on those little brass radiators really well anyway hope this helps someone out. I know I'm losing some aluminum to breakage price, but I'm gaining plastic, some rubber hose and even some steel to breakage price. Anyway let me know what you think