Well...this morning, since I never went to sleep, I decided to pull the radiator out of the all-trac and I ordered a new one for $164 w/shipping from 1-888-radiator.com. This old one was shot to all hell (pics in a minute). Pulling the radiator out of this car took me a little over an hour and a half...half of an hour was spent trying to figure out how to disconnect the connector for the fan without ripping it off (it had to be done from underneath the car...it was truely retarded)...pulling the corroded-on upper and lower hoses took me about 1/2 an hour (yikes!), and now I am going to the toyota dealership to order new hoses, a thermostat (why not since I have it all apart), a couple of corroded *** clamps, an oil filter (why not change the oil since the car is suspended in the air), and 10 little plastic clips that exploded (yes...all of them exploded) when I attempted to remove them (they held on a plastic trim piece that goes over the radiator).

The radiator should be in tomorrow...I bet the hoses will take 2 days though . Pulling this radiator was about 10 times easier and took 1/4 the time as it did for me and a friend to pull a radiator out of an '83 cadillac fleetwood. Anyways, here are some pictures of my adventures this morning:

Here you can tell how much faith I put in my jackstands; there are two on each side, just to suspend the front...1 on each side as a backup in case the first one breaks...I also have my floorjack supporting the transmission as a 3rd level of backup:



This car has massive amounts of body flex with only the front suspended...here is a dead on shot of the door and the body...that is about a 1/4" misalignment...enough to make it really hard to open and close the doors when the front is up in the air:



The engine bay is missing a radiator:



Here is the old piece of **** radiator:



Here is a close up of some of the corrosion on the bottom of the radiator (it was leaking from 10 or more places that I could find):



Here is the bottom of the radiator, dead on...totally corroded:



Here is the 951 with the suspended all-trac in the background:



Thanks for the help guys...at least I own a blow torch now and kind of know how to fix a hole in a metal radiator should it ever happen to me again.

 

Ribs, Toyota seems to have developed some 'issues' with radiators. My otherwise pristine '95 (pre-Tacoma)4x4 V-6 pick-up developed a terminal case of brass rot at about 6 year of age & 50K miles. I dunno if the PO had ever changed the coolant, but I did at about 35K when I bought it. Sucker rotted anyway, past reasonable repair. And I mean _rotted_, as in corroded at multiple points top & bottom, as yours seems to have done. I changed the coolant twice in 17 years on my '80 model 4x4, and never had radiator problems....

BTW, you may want to call the dealer about the hose prices; if they're like our local dealer, replacement factory parts seem to include charges for gold plating ($58.00 for _one_ freaking U-joint??!!). NAPA or other may be a better alternative, unless you plan to keep the car for an extended period. Your Toyota dealer may put Porsche parts prices in perspective....

Jim, still looking for the gold plating...

 

Ha! I know exactly what you are talking about. $.97 each for these little plastic clippy things that hold on a piece of plastic trim that goes over the radiator. They can not be removed without being destroyed...7 of them required. They cost $.01 to make 100 of them. $21 for a thermostat, $13 for a radiator cap, $17 for a 10" long lower radiator hose, $5 for a tools-free hose clamp!!! Parts I didn't buy from toyota, because I don't need them gold plated: $117 for a 1'x6" heatshield! $383 for a radiator (does it come with an orgasm machine?). I still need to find the heat shield, but I will look for a junked one.

Well...I finally got the radiator ($164 from 1-888-radiator.com) installed, with a new lower hose (all though I didn't need it, I figured I might as well do it since it was right there), new radiator cap (they only manufacturered the radiator in my all-trac for 1 month, the first month of production, then they switched to a different radiator...the only difference I saw between the original and the aftermarket one was it requiring me to get a 90.083333+ radiator cap), a much much cleaner engine (I used this 2 step engine cleaning thing I saw at the toyota dealership - it was $12, and got rid of most of the oil and grime off of the motor), an oil and filter change, a new $5 toolless hose clamp, and 7 new plastic clippy thingies that hold some plastic trim on. Overall I am satisfied with the job I did...not counting 5 round trips to toyota of bowie for ordering/picking up parts, cigarette breaks, etc. I ended up doing all of this stuff in about 5 hours or so (this isn't including the hour I spent trying to figure out how to get the lower bolt on the thermostat housing off - I am convinced it is a conspiracy that toyota made so you have to bring your car in so they can use a specially made tool to remove this 1 10mm nut - I finally gave up on it, as it was unaccessable without removing the send/recieve lines from the power steering pump *and* the oil filter housing thing...it seems to run fine with the original t-stat, so I am not going to complain).

Well...thanks for all the help guys (I think I said this in every post I made in this thread). At least I know how to do a radiator in a celica all-trac now, own a propane torch, and got sprayed with coolant in the eyes (once it was boiling hot) a couple of times. Toyota parts pricing makes me feel better about porsche parts pricing. Later.