Tedious afternoon

[Rick Parker]

For the last few weeks I've had the steering gear out of the car and servicing the Steering Rack and front suspension. To access some of the fasteners to redo the safety wire I had to remove the radiator. Today I spent the biggest part of the afternoon on a thankless menial project; straightening the fins on the radiator. Damn that is so tedious. I purchased a Fin Comb and before using it was then told by the folks at Fluidyne to use a pick instead and to not to go to deep as damage to the louvers would hinder the efficiency of the radiator. The trick is to carefully slide the pick in between each fin (about 1/4" deep) that has been folded over by road debris, large bugs and ingested import cars and work it from top to bottom between the horizontal tubes. Then using very long pointed needle nose pliers I was able to flatten the metal fins between the tubes and essentially reshape the damaged ones. I was amazed how long it took. There's ALOT of rows on a radiator