It's on my 97 Z71 pickup. It's leaking out of the base of the fitting where one of the trany cooler lines goes in. Looks liek right where the fitting is pressed/glues/whatever into the end tank.

Can this even be fixed? I'm leaving on a 1300 mile road trip in a few days, is there a quick fix? Is that prestone leak stop additive crap worth anything? I picked up some of that and the epoxy puddy sort of stop leak..but I'm not sure how it'll stick to the plastic..

 

The end tanks can be replaced, should only take a day to do that. Or you can buy a new one.

I wouldnt think anything (like epoxy) is going to last long. If you decide on epoxy anyway, that 2 part stuff thats sorta like Play-Doh works pretty well on plastic stuff. Just dont get any on ya, it smells worse than anything on this planet.

 

Jester, you could try some Jbweld. Just goober it on there but if im thinking if the fitting is damaged that wont hold very long. I can say the the Jb Welt does hold good though. I had a breatch in the firebirds radiator when the thermostate stuck. It was about a 2in long crack and it held until I replaced the hole radiator a month later. I just priced the 3 core for the full sized truck a few weeks back for my 91 and there $130.
Good Luck!
SSC

 

I coated the fitting tonight in that 2 parts play dough style epoxy...see how it does. Hopefully it'll at least let me get between gas stops without having to stop to fill the radiator on my roadtrip.

As for a permenant solution..I dunno. I'd hate to replace the whole thing because of a minor crack behind a fitting. Especially since it's a huge aluminum core. *** only knows what the dealer will charge to replace the endtanks. I was wondering what it would cost to have a radiator shop fab on some aluminum endtanks...might be an option.

 

http://www.autospeed.com/A_1145/page1.html

Something on there might help you, but what the hell do I know.

 

I believe I'd just get a new one... if the material is deteriorated enough ot break, then there will be other places that aren't far behind... on th eother hand, if the cooler line is stressing it or something like that, causing it to crack, it will just do it again, so the root cause would need to be addressed. Either way, it sounds to me like just spooging it over and running it right before a trip is a recipe for a roadside experience.

 

I used that play-dough type stuff on mine and it has held for six months. I plan to leave it forever, I crammed half of the stick into one of the rows to stop a leak that my passenger side cooling fan caused.