Philip P

Well finally got around to cleaning my radiators out after a couple years of ownership.

Front bumper, easy to take off but it is time consuming.

I don't have torx sockets but just a key set so it took even longer.

After removing everything and having a couple pieces of plastic break off from the wheel wells, not sure where they came from but the plastic is fairly brittle now.

My radiators look like everyone else's who has taken pictures of them. They were filthy...

And as it has been said before, there was a ton of gross hair... Lots and lots of hair, pretty disgusting.

Also found a couple pieces of paper, some polyurethane foam chunks, and a good piece of plastic from something else, not from the car since it was a lime green color.

Anyways, total time about 1.5 hours... I shopvac'd everything up and then gave them a good rinse and cleaning... Car runs cooler than before but not by much.

Overall, extremely easy to do...

And like always, I will gladly help anyone in the area who needs to get this done...

if you haven't done it, do it. I always keep my car clean and don't drive it much. I thought mine wouldn't be THAT bad... especially because they look clean from the ducts... definitely not the case.

Chaos

Ha, I did it in two days!

babylonboots

What! no after photo?

Thanks for the information. I've been thinking of doing this soon.

wyovino

I did mine last month. I lubricated the plastic wheel-well rivets with a little dish soap and water (50/50). I wet them with a artist's paint brush and tried to get behind the rivet heads. They came out pretty easy with some needle nose pliers. My radiator fins weren't that dirty but there was a bunch of leaves and stuff tucked away in both corners. That stuff really could have been vacuumed out without removing the bumper. It's worth doing at least once. I didn't notice any change in operating temperature.

82_930

Wow, I had no idea that it could get that dirty, how does one go about taking off the front nose? I can foresee a weekend task about to be added to my TO DO list!

Thundertub

Do a search here. There are at least 5 DIY threads and several others, with pictures, and circles and arrows, and a paragraph on the back explaining what each one is about (thank you Arlo Gutherie).


And a reminder to newbies that the top photo shows what is BETWEEN the A/C and the ENGINE COOLING radiators on each side. You must separate the two to get at the really nasty stuff. Simply cleaning in front of the radiators does not do it. And they need a good high pressure hosing once apart and vacuumed.

You car will thank you for this.

Hurdigurdiman

No it's an easy job and you will be amazed on how light the front part is when you lift it off. By the way VINO you cannot do it with a vacuum as you think. You have to remove the condensor before you can see the rads and that can only be done with the front off. By the way Phil, you missed a golden opportunity when you had the front off. You could have re-routed the wire trunk emergency release cable from where it is hidden, through a slit in the plastic air scoop out beside the air temp sensor of the passenger front. That way it is possible to release the trunk lid from outside the car without fishing around under the wheel well to get to a flat battery. I did it and it works great. I power washed mine after finding all kinds of rubbish jammed between the Condensor and Radiators. Didn't really notice if the engine runs cooler but it wont run warmer and thats for certain. Anyway anyone wanting to attempt the job, here is a video from youtube showing how it's done. I used this video before I attempted the job.


and here is the second part..

trapperdog

Be very careful with high pressure washers. I wouldn't recommend it. The radiator fins are very soft and will easily bend. Just use a garden hose or compressed air, or even just a soft brush and a vacuum.

white99c2

Its getting hot in Phoenix and my car has both a high speed only fan hack and a switched fan hack along with the engine compartment fan. I hit a small switch on the dash and both condensor fans come on high speed as well as the engine compartment fan.
In stop and go traffic with an outside temp anywhere above 95 my temp gauge will sit on the right of the 0 of 180. It goes to the middle of the 0 once I get moving but once the temp is above 100 here all I do is stare at that temperature gauge. Porsche checked the car out and assured me it is 100% normal to have the needle inside the 0 or even a bit to the right of it in the heat of summer here in Phoenix.
I cleaned both radiators as well and noticed no difference.
In the spring and fall the car stays inbetween the 8 and 0 all the time, even in stop and go traffic.

wyovino

@Hurdigurdiman - You misunderstood what I said. I did move the condensers out of the way and cleaned everything, only there was very little debris there. The majority of what I ended up removing was visible looking through the opening in the grill. The degree of filth between the condensers and radiators is probably a function of mileage and environment. In my case, the dirt accumulation was negligible.

D6lc

Did mine today as well, pretty dirty for 40k miles. Vacuumed mine first then pressure washed them. even after vacuuming all the loose stuff off it still rinse out alot of dirty water.
My tip is to ensure you remove all the wheel well screws and be very careful as it is very brittle and both mine cracked. I followed the online video of the guy bending back the well to remove the inner screw, mine were too brittle to do this.
Before, after and where the well split

D6lc

and after

roperin

I was a bit worried about my car in the summer in Florida, so i did that, cleaned everything up front, no change in temperature, then i replaced the water pump and thermostat at 35 thousand miles. No change. Replaced the water tank reservoir and the cap, no change at all, still had the damn temperature guage showing just to the right of the zero, THEN I pulled off the vertical hose at the water pump and found a minute hole in the hose right where the right angle bend is on the inside of that tight right angle bend. Problem solved ! Spent about a week messing around ! Surprising thing was there was very little staining from the escaping fluid.

Zenski

Hi guys,
It was a rainy cold day this last Saturday and I jumped online and started to read some post and came across this one. I decided what the heck lets do it.
First thanks for the video attachment, made it real easy.
My '99 with 48K... figured it would need it and I was right. It was raining so I didn't use the hose to clean, just the air compressor


Thanks
Zenski

Hal

I did my radiators in March and found pretty much the same thing as the OP. Then last weekend I ran a DE with Sunday being in the mid 80's. I found that the engine temps (as read by the dash gauge) were pretty much the same as a DE last November prior to cleaning them.

This is not to say that trash is OK, but rather don't look for huge cooling improvements when most of the radiator is clean.