RADIATOR REPLACEMENT
The radiator was working fine when I replaced it (don't tell the wife...) but I was starting to think I was pushing my luck with it. The 14 year old radiator had 165,000 on the clock, the bottom three inches of the radiator stayed cold no matter how far I drove, I had been running without any fan at all for over 15,000 miles, and I was planning a 3000 mile trip through the Pyrenees with 6 people on board..... Time to change the radiator and fit an electric fan.
Source a new radiator, and an X-Eng temp-sender housing that fits in the radiator lower hose, buy 11 litres of coolant also.
Remove the fan & shroud if you still have them. Then outside, remove the grill (1) and lower it a few inches. Then remove the radiator top mounting brackets (the bolts may snap, 2&3).
Once that's done you can drain the radiator, remove the hoses and the oil pipe connections (it's not really an oil cooler as such, more of a heat exchanger). Refit the inserts for the oil pipes into the new radiator (below), I use silicone gasket on the treads.
Next I flushed the rest of the brown water from the system, I also flushed the heater matrix by sticking a hose pipe on the end of the two loosened hoses (below picture, two arrows). I fitted the temp-sender housing as seen below. I'll deal with fitting the fan in another page.
Then I was ready to re-assemble. Not hard, just the reverse of removal, add the 11 litres of coolant and the water, check for leaks and run to temp, re-check for leaks. Sorted.
Below is the old radiator.
