Life isn't that simple.  Neither are Radiators!  Sure they do serve a seemingly simple job, they do corrode and they do cost a lot, and that is all the average person gets to know about them in their life.

 Now lets take a look at the reality of them. They do an essential job. Your cars engine does several jobs to achieve its intended power output. 

1.  It burns fuel in a very controlled environment - the combustion chambers - to get its basic energy needs and therefore allow you to drive. It does this by converting its input of chemical energy, to your needed mechanical energy which is adapted by the drive train and output through the cars driven wheels.  It also generates electricity, without which your car wouldn't even start!

2.  It dissipates the unwanted by-products of this combustion, heat & waste gasses, by various methods - heat by radiators, exhaust and direct conduction from the components themselves, and waste gasses by the exhaust pipe. Engines are a very complex system of balanced needs.  If one goes out of whack far enough it can cause major permanent troubles very quickly.  The heat generated by a cars engine is tremendous.  When there is sufficient cooling for an engine it will run happily (assuming everything else is healthy).  When there is excess heat the engine will suffer as will your repair bills.  Usually gaskets blow, engines warp & crack and eventually (can be measured in seconds) they seize.  Diesels are notorious for being unable to survive excessive heat.  They usually cost many thousands of dollars to fix when they overheat too much. For more info look up: Rebuild, overhaul, recondition, replace.  see also: Finance, bank loan, sell as wreck, cry.

All this is under the control of your radiator.  It does whatever circumstances depict.  If the hoses leak it runs dry.  If it runs dry and you keep driving then you will need to see your banks loan officer.  If you are observant or lucky enough, you may stop in time to avoid damage to the engine.  That's a big IF. 

 Here are a few simple questions for you.  When you last checked your temperature gauge, what did it read?  Is the radiators coolant level low, high or ???  What coolant is the radiator using?  Is it the right one?  Do you keep some spare coolant (of the right type) in the car for emergencies? How are the radiator hoses - healthy, Ok, wet?  Do you have any spare radiator hoses?  If you are unsure what the correct answer is, try this one - How is your bank balance?

 Get the hint?  Yep, the radiator is an essential bit of equipment and its continued health is governed mostly by your attention and wisdom.  A little regular attention can and probably will save you soooo much.

 Ok, now on to the Radiator itself. 

PWR Radiators were kind enough to give the club a private guided tour of their massive site, and on a weekend no less!  Making a Radiator is no easy task. Everything is done by hand, and with the price of the specialised equipment and materials there is a perception of high price. But machinery that would do an equal job would send the price through the roof when you take into account that EVERY car manufacturer has a variety of Radiator sizes and shapes.  They also use different materials for the various parts. For instance, early radiators were commonly made out of combinations of copper, brass and lead.  The copper and brass were used in the reservoirs (tanks) and the cores joining the reservoirs.  The lead was in the fine fins filling every square cm of space in between.  These were all soldered or braised together to become one strong leak free unit.  There were problems though. One bad joint or poor seam could either cause a leak or restrict coolant flow.  Consequently there was a risk that new Radiators were not usable without repairs, and repairs were sometimes not viable.  It still happens to a reducing degree, because new techniques and technologies are constantly being developed and fine tuned with this in mind. 

 Enter the modern Radiator.  Everything from the old style, to plastic pre-moulded tanks, aluminium cores and fins.  The new plastic ones have different problems - like bad sealing when pressed onto the core.  The aluminium ones - i.e.: Forester etc - are amazingly thin and light, yet do the same job as heavy larger ones.

 It is fascinating just looking at the machinery and raw materials which are used in the Radiators making. They are slow to make and require extreme

manual speed and precision.  The bottom tank is put into a frame, the cores and fins hand laid, one at a time, and the top tank then put on (It takes only a few minutes for a good worker to do all this).  Next they are strapped together, to stop joint flexing, and then the seams sealed - by dipping in a enormous solder tank usually.  Technology is again making advances here.  The humble cooling fin, which used to be made from lead is now being contoured, sculpted, customised and adapted for individual car models.  In doing so the radiator can be made smaller and more efficient. But at a price.

PWR had a variety of truck radiators on hand when we went through.  Some were so large they were taller than us and weighed as much as a tonne and are made in sections - they were for dozers and the big mining trucks etc. Intercoolers for the sportier Turbo models are also a form of radiator, as is those used by air conditioners.  The list of machinery using these sealed heat-dissipaters grows daily. 

The humble Radiator is no more.  It is now a completely specialized hi-tech system of custom designed components forming a unique and essential sealed integrated heat-dissipation system for our vehicles.  For some it has reached the status of being the ultimate status add-on for their tweaked Rex' Turbo.  For a few it is a debris catcher when playing in the creeks and bog-holes 4WD drivers like so much.  For others it is something at the end of the filler bottle, hidden by shrouds and under-bonnet plumbing. Either way, its there to stay.  Keeping it healthy will help your bank balance stay positive.

 Thank you PWR Radiators !