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Pics of radiator connections

6K views 39 replies 17 participants last post by  eurban 
#1 ·
I did a B1 service today and while I had it up on jackstands, thought I'd take a look at my radiatior connections at 48,964 miles.

I was able to get a good look at the connection on the passenger side, but not a very good look at the one on the driver side. I removed the coolant drain panel on the splash panel and stuck my hand and camera up through that access point to take my pics.

Passenger side:



Driver side:


I need to get a better shot of that last one.
 
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#2 ·
Speed, even the underside of your truck looks pristine--where do you live, on the moon?
 
#3 ·
Brad, I honestly don't do anything to the underside. It's garaged, but gets driven in whatever conditions exist at the time. I'll drive it though the carwash maybe every couple of months or so, but that's it.
 
#5 ·
None of the above. I plan to replace the radiator at the time of the TB/WP change, which should occur (unless my driving changes) in about another 5 years/60k miles.

Same with the Pilot which is just short of 89k miles. I figure maybe another 2 years on it before time for the TB/WP/radiator.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Here's mine with 5600 miles. 2011 Purchased new last April. I don't think I see any corrosion/rust. These don't look identical to yours though. Does it look like there's an extra washer to you? And there are notches on the corner of the nut on mine. I wonder if they did something to prevent this problem for the 2011. It is really hard to get a good picture in there.

I'm debating painting some clearcoat on these while it still has no corrosion.

Passenger side:
Auto part Machine Metal Pipe Plumbing

Auto part Automotive lighting Tire Automotive tire


Driver side:
Auto part Vehicle Fuel line Wheel Pipe
 
#23 ·
Here's mine with 5600 miles. 2011 Purchased new last April. I don't think I see any corrosion/rust. These don't look identical to yours though. Does it look like there's an extra washer to you? And there are notches on the corner of the nut on mine. I wonder if they did something to prevent this problem for the 2011. It is really hard to get a good picture in there.

I'm debating painting some clearcoat on these while it still has no corrosion.


Those nuts look different from the early ones, but since they are probably made in China... chances are they will rust too...
I can't wait to see the crappy chinese cars when they start shipping them over here with 3/6 months warranty... and then start rusting from top to bottom.... !

.
 
#8 ·
Unless something changes between now and then, I plan to look for Silla or another 3rd party radiator with brass or other non-steel connections.

I have the appropriate threads bookmarked... if I can remember to look for them at that point. :D
 
#11 ·
Perhaps Honda changed something to prevent this problem on the most recent years? I went back and looked at the threads where these tranny disasters happened. The nuts on those trucks looked like the same style as on Speedlever's (as opposed to those on my 2011...see my post above).

If the newer years solved the problem, it'd be nice to know. They really need to issue a recall on this.
 
#13 ·
There are about 4 threads about the issue.

Honda uses a steel washer that rusts on those fittings, when it rusts, the fitting gets loose or comes off the tranny cooler inside the radiator, mixes with the cooling fluid, looses tranny fluid, leaking both cooling and tranny fluid.
 
#18 ·
No comfort I know, but this doesn’t seem to be isolated to Honda in any way. Perhaps Honda buyers just expect more? A friend drives a gas delivery truck and recently had this happen to his company truck if you can believe it.

I have a bunch of pictures snapped along the way, but organizing them into some meaningful post would take more than a few hours and I’m not sure how to post more than a few anyway. Normal tools and standard amount of contortions for any similar project are required.

One of the other posts has the steps from the service manual so I won’t go searching for those. I spent about a ½ day on it while a shop would book through it in an hour or so. I combined this with one ATF swap to keep possible ATF spillage to a minimum and that seemed to help a lot. Of course I also drained and captured the antifreeze, but replaced it with one gallon of new antifreeze and then if I recall topped up the recovery tank with an inch or so of the old anti freeze. I’ve read of shops just returning all of the old anti freeze, but I wanted to have some on reserve for this project anyway.

I started by driving up on some 6 inch wood blocks to give a little more room below but not so much that you can’t reach over and still work from above. A kitchen stool was still some help.

There are several sizes of those plastic expansion rivets on the upper and lower plastic shrouds and bolts in different lengths with the same thread so you do have to keep organized. I got messed up thinking I used the correct bolts on the fan shrouds. One of the fan shrouds is molded plastic and is much thicker and so uses a longer bolt, and redoing this required working blind across the bottom of the installed radiator.

The ATF lines didnt leak out very fast so it was easy to have a pre-staged bolt for a plug on the soft lines and just pop the line off, cover it with your thumb and slide the plug in. I had a section of old hose with a plug in it to cover open metal lines.

The only other thing is a single wire attached low down on the side of the passenger side fan shroud that has a connector mounted to a tab on the shroud. I had to work this off and disconnect it while working from below. It fought me a little, but I’m sure yours won’t. Just want to be careful since this is a single wire and more easily broken if you start to pull heavy items away and it’s still attached.

Other than the usual few scraped knuckles, a fun little project. The radiator I used was a KOYO from Rock Auto for $187. If there are any specific pictures that anyone would like to see I can look to see if I captured it by chance.
 
#22 ·
Thanks! Speed for posting these up.

As far as looking at the Koyorad (Koyo), yes i did look at it at a local shop and was disappointed at first until i looked at several others including other manufactures installed OEM's and realized they all use a similar configuration. I also checked some of the other Belleville washers with a magnet and they were all magnetic. The hope was that it might be stainless steel, but you cant tell that with a magnet because many tool stainless types are also magnetic... SS knives, firearms etc. Plus Belleville washers are conical spring washers so it has to be made of a material capable of acting like a spring which would exclude brass for this application. In the end I spent way too much time trying to find the best option and decided that any of the popular 3 or so names are probably equally good and have the same type of construction, and aside from developing some sort of relationship with the manufacturer, I wasnt going to learn any more about the specific materials. Of course this is one thing I'll always keep an eye on now for any car I own.
 
#20 ·
That's the other one I was thinking of. Koyo. That and the Silla are the two I recall from the other threads on this issue (which as someone stated, is not exclusive to the RL... nor to Honda). And Spectra may be another option.

schwejo posted pics of his Koyo iirc as he received one damaged... then dissected it and took pics.

Here's some info by schwejo:
http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/showpost.php?p=672871&postcount=116

http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/showpost.php?p=648194&postcount=259

http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/showpost.php?p=650618&postcount=380
 
#21 · (Edited)
Since these all seem to be manufactured in China, I have noticed that the names change almost with each shipment from China. Buying over the internet for this radiator(for me) would be a "pig in the poke". I need to see what's going in my Rl and it's too late when it arrives at my house and it's unacceptable. It's the reason I sought out a real radiator shop, looked at his radiators and talked about what he sees on a daily basis before changing mine out.
 
#24 ·
I was always taking the stubborn approach to the radiator issue and said I was going to make the Ridge prove its dependability. I planned to just drive it until I had to replace parts, and disagreed with the radiator replacement solely as a maintenance item. Although, I still think it is crappy that Honda has this issue, I started taking it more serious when some veteran ROC members recommended inspection. Anyway, after inspecting, I was considering replacing the radiator. But today I was taking the front cat shield off due to a rattle and decided to get some better pics. Now I have changed my mind...I am thinking these connections still look OK. I still have original plugs, coolant, and have not adjusted valves at 158K. I am hoping to run to 200K and then do a little maintenance. I was thinking of doing the plugs, coolant & radiator then. I searched this forum for pictures of the failed fittings, but couldnt seem to come up with anything. Does anyone have a picture of a failure? Any thougths on if mine are dangerous?
 

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#25 ·
#28 ·
Speed- what is the extra fitting in the picture? It appears to have threads, and has a oring. If this is the same fitting, why not just back it out and replace the washer? Obviously it's not that easy or people wouldn't keep replacing the radiator, but looks possible from the pic.

Also, did this radiator fail? It looks like I have awhile before my washers get this bad.
 
#27 ·
To Matt's question. As a preventative measure could the union be sprayed with something like WD40, Royal purples MAXFILM MULTIPURPOSE SYNTHETIC LUBRICANT or some other spay to keep the corrosion from begining int the first place? I've read Naval Jelly could be used but I would guess that would probably require dis-assembly of the union before application.

Just wondering if a spray could be applied.

Just curious.

Thanks!

Manny
 
#29 ·
There are two couplings, inlet and outlet. You see both in that pic. Yes, I believe this one failed (details in the thread I linked). You don't want to wait quite that long. :D

I think I've asked the same question about replacing the washer, but I can't remember the answer! (getting old is heck, but it beats the alternative!).
 
#30 ·
I don't see any reason why I couldnt just replace the washer. The fittings look like they thread in. But what I don't understand is why no one has ever tried this before. Apparently I am missing something though. People wouldn't be replacing $150+ radiators if they could replace 0.59 washers.
 
#35 ·
Sure, I don't see any reason why they couldn't be changed. They are Belleville (conical spring) washers so their purpose is to maintain a preload on the seal, so it's not just a flat washer. Belleville washers are available in all sorts of materials so something rust resistant shouldn't be a problem. I think you would want to combine it with a ATF change and radiator drain to minimize spills and mixing. You would also need to do only one side at a time since the nipple assy is what keep the cooler attached to the inside wall of the tank. If you remove both at the same time it falls loose inside and that will cause real problems. Plus the OEM radiator seems to use some sort of thread lock so not sure what to do about that. Could be pretty messy and thread lock isn't going to like a surface with ATF on it. If anything I considered replacing the Belleville washers with something I knew was rust resistant, but thought to myself, that's going a little overboard and that I'd just assume that the Koyorad I replaced it with would last . So in the end, I'm sure the washers could be replaced, but not sure it's the easiest or best route.
 
#37 ·
The belleville washers could be replaced, but I don't believe an actual part has been identified yet where you can get them. Then again, I don't think anyone, including myself, has really looked that much. You most certainly need to do them one at a time, but another thing to consider is that you need to remove the radiator from the truck. It would be nearly impossible to do this while it was in there. There just isn't enough room.

My radiator fittings were bad, so I decided to have it replaced. I kept the old radiator with the thought of dissecting it. I never got around to it. However, I did look at it yesterday for the first time. It was not in great shape. It was extremely dirty and there looked to be several rock/road debris marks. I was ok with replacing the entire thing as who knows how much longer the stock radiator would have lasted.
 
#38 · (Edited)
Here are some measurements of the OEM Belleville washer.

http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/showpost.php?p=672871&postcount=116

Ive never purchased one outside of a rebuild kit for something else, but you can buy them on line in all sorts of materials. Like others are saying, unless you had a lift you would really want to pull the radiator. I dont like the idea of working below with ATF dripping in your eyes and running down your arm in a cramped position. No doubt anyone who has spent much time building and fixing things may have worked in worse conditions, but the easiest path in my view for this one is still to pull the radiator. Then, if I'm already pulling the radiator I'd probably replace it anyway depending on how it looked. My CA, 06 radiator with ~50k miles actually looked very good aside from the Belleville washers and even then when I cleaned it all up even the washers were not showing any signs of immediate failure. I just wanted to get the repair over with and have piece of mind that I wouldn't get stranded off the beaten path, at least for this reason.

I would hope that Honda has identified the problem and replaced the washers with something that is better suited. I have to believe that they took this seriously, fixed the issue and now seem to have tried to cover it up and pretend it never happened. At least this thinking would help me to believe that a new OEM radiator would be a safe bet.

When Honda agreed to my "good will" fix they would have replaced it with an OEM but that was too early in my understanding of the problem to take them up on it, but the service rep who was helping me did say that there was a recent change in the part no, but couldn't tell me what it was for. Thats when I accepted their $187 check and did my own replacement with a Koyorad. Now, at this point in time, I would take Honda up on their offer to replace it.
 
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