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Radiator replacement at 90k miles

11bravoZ71
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11bravoZ71 Enthusiast

11bravoZ71

Posted
Posted (edited)

hello fellow GM drivers. happy holidays. 
I wanted to ask Has anybody had their radiator crack on their 19+ Sierra Silverados. Mine cracked on the driver side plastic side. It bulged outwards.  I did do a coolant drain and fill not to long ago. Perhaps I didn’t bleed the air enough and over pressure caused it to crack. Found this failure really strange. If anybody has any knowledge on how to remove It. I’d  appreciate it. I managed to get some some JB WELD. On the crack without removing it or sanding the plastic. But  it lasted 5 days because I didn’t prep it and sand the surface because I couldn’t reach in between the condenser enough. So the epoxy cracked and leaked ……

 

Already have a OEM unit being shipped. Just wondering if anybody had experiences removing this radiator on this body style. Because it looks over engineered like All vehicles nowadays. Have to remove a lot of plastics. 
 It’s a 2019 Silverado CC Z71

5.3 8speed  

OG owner.  keeping this bad boy  forever. 


 

the uploaded image was found on Reddit from Some other truck 19+  owner. I have the same EXACT. Failure location. Strange. 

IMG_3248.jpeg

Edited by 11bravoZ71
Bikerjon Enthusiast

Bikerjon

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, 11bravoZ71 said:

hello fellow GM drivers. happy holidays. 
I wanted to ask Has anybody had their radiator crack on their 19+ Sierra Silverados. Mine cracked on the driver side plastic side. It bulged outwards.  I did do a coolant drain and fill not to long ago. Perhaps I didn’t bleed the air enough and over pressure caused it to crack. Found this failure really strange. If anybody has any knowledge on how to remove It. I’d  appreciate it. I managed to get some some JB WELD. On the crack without removing it or sanding the plastic. But  it lasted 5 days because I didn’t prep it and sand the surface because I couldn’t reach in between the condenser enough. So the epoxy cracked and leaked ……

 

Already have a OEM unit being shipped. Just wondering if anybody had experiences removing this radiator on this body style. Because it looks over engineered like All vehicles nowadays. Have to remove a lot of plastics. 
 It’s a 2019 Silverado CC Z71

5.3 8speed  

OG owner.  keeping this bad boy  forever. 


 

the uploaded image was found on Reddit from Some other truck 19+  owner. I have the same EXACT. Failure location. Strange. 

IMG_3248.jpeg

Sh***y plastic side tank on the radiator. I've seen a lot of them leak. Never done one on a T1. This is not unusual. They usually leak between the tank and radiator core. 

redwngr Senior Enthusiast

redwngr

Posted
Posted

Radiators (on anything) can fail, but it had nothing to do with air not bleed out. 

 

11bravoZ71 Enthusiast

11bravoZ71

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks for the replies fellas. Perhaps it was just bad luck.  Being plastic and all. A high quality all metal one for this body style would be nice. Once I get the new radiator and I remove this one and install I’ll update on the difficulty of the job. 

11bravoZ71 Enthusiast

11bravoZ71

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  • Author
Posted (edited)

 To those who might need to someday replace their radiator DIY on the 19+ GM trucks.  I Got the radiator installed. I watched  YouTube videos of the previous body style 14-18 trucks. And the process was very similar if not very close. A 3 hour job but in retrospect fairly easy. this video was spot on. Even though it’s the previous body style. It guided me through till done. I did have to remove skid plate to make the job easier. Just do it. 

Attached I have my cracked crappy JB patch on the old radiator  LOL.
On the new radiator I lightly sanded the same area and applied JB WELD. As a preemptive move because it seems these radiators crack in this exact spot for some reason. 

 

 

 

IMG_3522.jpeg

Edited by 11bravoZ71
  • 1 year later...
lennybg Enthusiast

lennybg

Posted
Posted

just replaced the radiator on my 19 with 104K Miles. Cracked in the exact same spot.  Its not a hard job, just a huge pain in the ass job unless you have tiny little hands. 

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