side mounted radiator

[TRAILERKING]

Side rad's are nice for many reasons as mentioned. They stay cleaner, runs cooler, easier maintenance when working on the engine area.

[Dr4Film]

Originally Posted by gemini5362

be careful of the side radiator coaches also. Some of the older tiffins and a couple of other brands I believe had cooling issues with their side mounted radiators. I suspet the issue is that the radiator is a tad too small in those ( this includes mine) Read up on the problem and try and avoid those years and models.

Can you please provide some Internet references to this fact?

I've owned this side radiator for 10 years, 2002 Monaco Windsor and have never had any cooling problems to date and I do not want to have any in the future.

I'd sure like to read more about this problem.

Thanks.

Dr4Film ----- Richard

[sc3283]

Not true on low HP and side radiators...Monaco had 5.9 and 8.3c with 300hp or less with side radiators for years.

I personally like the side version...much easier access to engine

[JohnFreyja]

I wonder if Gemeni is referring to the Aluminum radiator issues? Mine had to be replaced on my 05 Inspire. It's one of the items (along with PTO) that needs to be checked if buying.

[B Bob]

You want a side radiator. There is no good reason to have a rear one and several good reasons to have a side radiator. Getting to your motor for maintenance and keeping funk off your radiator and clogging it up are two reasons to have a side.

[gemini5362]

Guys here is a post whee they list some of the problems.
http://www.irv2.com/forums/f26/how-t...mps-10574.html

My understanding is freightliner never issued a recall to fix the problem. If you were under warranty and had problems they did the stuff mentioned in one of the posts for that link. I am in the process now of trying to figure out what has been done to my coach under that repair and whether or not the problem is going to continue. By the time my coach had the fan controller replaced it was getting cool enough for me not to have the issue. I did not get a chance to go out west in the tall mountains to see if it was still there this summer but hopefully can next summer. I have noticed that on the hydraulic tank for my unit has a sticker that says to fill with 5 w 40 motor oil. I looked and someone has hydrauilc fluid in there instead of motor oil. One of the problems they had with doing this is that the increased pressure of the oil versus hydraulic fluid caused the radiator that cools the hydraulic fluid to ruptuer and they had to put a new higher pressure unit in. I do not know if I have that higher pressure unit in yet and am going to call freighliner and talk to them about it. I know that I looked at a 2007 bus that was 42 ft versus 38 ft and the one thing I noticed was a considerably larger radiator. There is quite a bit of information about it on the net. It only seems to be certain years that have the problem and then not all units. I think for the allegro bus it was the ISL engine pre 2006. Like the poster said in the link and what I believe is that the radiator is too small for extreme loads. By extremem I mean pulling a toad, In very hot days, At high altitudes. The air is thinner and the radiator just cannot get enough heat transfer. I am going to add that I do not know if mine still has a problem. I never did get into the limp home mode but I was shifting down to second to keep the RPMs maxed out and that got kind of old having to go up a mountain at 45 miles an hour when the engine had plenty of power to pull me up at higher speeds but if I let the transmission shift to a higher gear and lower the rpm then it started getting hot.