Moving radiator to the rear

1stgenxxx

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Location
Hudson
I'm looking at moving my radiator to the rear of my truck...I was wondering what material yaul have used to do so? Tubing or hose? Connectors?
 
would a toyota water pump be enough to push coolant to the back of the truck?
 
anyone else? What tubing or hose did you use?
 
I used 1-1/4" water pipe which measures 1.66" OD from Lowe's. It is heavier than exhaust piping, but I welded mounts to it. I then used regular radiator hoses from the auto parts store on all the ends. I just took measurements for each one and sketched them out on paper and the guy's at the auto parts store let me wander around in the back and pick which ones matched. I made sure to buy ones with the springs inside them for the suction side to prevent them from collapsing. I also used an inline radiator cap pipe thing on the engine outlet side so I would have a high point at the front to bleed and fill from. My cold side also went up and then back down, so at the high spot I put a short piece of pipe in with a little fitting to bleed the air out. I made a custom shroud for the Taurus fan, and am running a DC Controls fan controller. I had no trouble with air pockets or cooling. It works great.
 
We've done a rear mounted toy rad. We use aluminzed exhaust pipe also, works good. The only other advice would be to weld a "ring" around each end of your pipe so the hose clamps have something to grab to.
 
What they said was on par. Just want to add that you can bend the exhaust tubing pretty well in a normal tubing bender, make sure it's not exposed anywhere, and realize that it's a real pita to bleed rear mounted rads.
 
any reason not to run 1.75 hrew? it is cheap enough, and i would feel better about it not getting destroyed compares to exhaust tubing.
 
Everything else mentioned above except there's also the alternative of steam hose to make the job quick and easy. I used threaded stainless steel only for fact I traded for it cheaply. If I have a failure in the future, I'd go with steam hose. Keep in mind regular steel will corrode over time especially if you ever have to fill with tap water.
 
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