Car: '96 integra gs-r manual

I was taking a road trip of about 150miles to visit a few friends and had some cooling system issues. Turns out, I had a crack across the top of my radiator in the plastic, and from what I've read around here thats not a terribly uncommon problem.

My temp. guage was acting up as well. When I saw I was overheating, the temp guage was close to the H like it should have been. After letting it all cool off and replacing the coolant in the radiator and spare reservoir, I hit the road again. At this point my temp. guage was almost touching the C. This didn't make any sense to me since it never really moved past that.

Further up the road I got behind a slow-moving truck and dropped to about 40mph. Then I watched the temp. guage go from near C to past the halfway, so I pulled it over and cursed. The radiator was dry again so I convinced myself to fill it up with river water filtered through a shirt. I figured that river water was better than hot air.

I got there and me and a buddy found the crack. Since I was far from home and had to get back in a couple of days, I went ahead and bought a new Modine radiator for it and put it in.


My questions are;

could the plastic have been repaired in any way to avoid buying a whole new radiator?

should I get a new thermostat as well or was it probably just stuck in an air pocket or something? (after the new install, temp guage is reading normally)

should I have gotten a new radiator from Honda or does it really matter since radiators aren't really all that complicated? I doubt the steel of the new Modine vs. the plastic of the stock one is a bad thing.

Thanks

 

At that point, you need to replace the radiator. Going aftermarket is good in the case of these radiators, so you can get away from plastic...it's a great idea. It sounds like your thermostat is ok, the car is running where it should be now. If you hear the fans not click on, or see the temp gauge reading cooler than normal (near the C mark, or under 1/4 of the way up the gauge), that would be a time to check the thermostat.

 

its not worth getting it fixed if you could. Modine is a reputable company, my cousin(owns his own shop) actually recommend that brand when my cracked last December. as far as your thermostat, it should be fine. these radiators are know to crack. if you want, you can make sure you fans turn on when they should to make sure the fans switch is good. is this the original radiator that cracked?

 

yeah it was the original honda labeled radiator. i don't remember the manufacturer's name... it looks like it's seen better days. i think i found some feathers stuck to the front

the first thing we did after installing the modine was to let it run until the fans came on to make sure we got the connections solid, etc. it took a while but they did eventually kick on.

 

I had the same thing happen to my 97 GS-R so I replaced it with a Fluidyne a costly replacement.

 

you were smart in replacing the radiator. it's not worth it to fix an old, cracked one.

best practices would suggest to replace the thermostat too. you especially want to flush your system at the same time, due to being forced to use dirty water earlier. you want to make sure any crap that got in there is washed out.

so, buy new tstat, remove old tstat, flush the system, install new tstat.