Community Forums

Darin1960 · 02-21-2020, 05:02 AM

I posted my cleaning experience on another thread but will share a bit on here. I had noticed for a little while my temp was getting higher than normal on grades. It finally overheated in I 70 shortly after exiting i15 near Ft Cove Utah. There is a pretty aggressive climb ,forget the actual grade but my beeper went off, I was at 225 degrees. Being it had shown a temp rise of more than normal a few times previously I decided to un hitch my toad and proceed after it had cooled a bit, this helped but of coarse was not a fix.got to next camp and looked every thing over and did my best to clean rad. Not much I could do so I babied it on the rest of my journey knowing I had no real climbs headed back to Sc from there. Got home and a couple days I did my inspection, looking thru the engine side from bedroom I could see all the buildup on The cac. I then tried to look between the cac and rad and there was not much I could see . I waited till it was dark outside and had my wife get out back with a pretty bright flash light and shine the toward the engine comp, was inside bedroom looking back and was faint light here and there, but from my position I really could not see every bit of the area because of angle I was looking and the shroud. Next morn I crawled under and saw a place on lower right of coach where I cut away a very little bit of some fiberglass ( not actual siding of coach) and I could see in between cac and rad. I made a wand out of a chrome( hard not plastic) water supply line , one generally used under a kitchen sink for hot or cold water and attached to a garden hose , at the other end I simply bent thr hard line creating a 90 degree spray which came out pretty strong . I got several degreasers and really soaked from inside and out back , forget all types I used but there are some that are not recommended to use on rads so I stayed away from those. I stuck that wand up in my little access hole and blasted for probably 2 hours, moving all directions ,oh forgot to mention I fashioned a plastic sleeve on the end of wand so I would not be dragging the metal against the rad fins and I used the wand to blast even in the engine side , just kept blowing from all possible directions, did this for about 8 or so hours,. That night I had wife shine light like she had the previous night and I could see at least 75% more light . I have bee anxious to see how this helped but for various reasons I did not get to take any trips that I would hit some grades since that last big trip but will say everyyhing seems cleaner, btw I went ahead and replaced thermostat and all rad hoses , the old ones were pretty checked when squeezed.

PABO05 · 02-21-2020, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim427

1999 Fleetwood Discovery diesel. Looking for a guide for removing the radiator. Did a search in the forums but so far can't find a good guide. I'm sure this has been covered. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I had the pleasure of cleaning my radiator

in December, I went thru my bedroom and closet floor,using a pump sprayer and simple green(purple)
from inside and outside. Let it stand for a few minutes and rinse off with a garden hose and nozzle being careful NOT to spray straight onto radiator,
but on a slant. Did this twice. Looking from the bedroom thru the radiator
could see lots of light.This is something that I have done once before
and intend to do annually. Hope this prevents me from removing the radiator anytime soon.

Darin1960 · 02-21-2020, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim427

Darin1960
Where is the Fleetwood forum. On this site or a different one. Thanks.

Under owners corner forums

Dav L · 02-22-2020, 09:14 AM

Darin1960 - put some paragraphs in there. You might have good stories and insights but it's not readable. Takes too much concentration.

SC40QS · 02-23-2020, 06:41 PM

My radiator experience is also posted elsewhere here. It involved thinking the RAD/CAC were plugged, into a "oh crap, my belt driven fan is not working right"

The fan clutch was stuck in idle mode and never went into driven mode; end result was, we overheated on hills!

Anyway, just thot I'd stick that in here in case anyone has the dilemma of "I cleaned the rad/cac and I'm still overheating"

In my case, I now hear the fan kicking in almost every time I accelerate, which I've been told is normal, not so much due to coolant temp needs but the CAC heats up every time you accelerate.

adding to this by edit: I get substantially better power on hills now with the fan driving air through the CAC! I will admit, mileage is down slightly, most likely due to the fan drag??