 Here is a few shots of my 70D radiator, which I re-cored. Your "A" is a bit smaller, and so it's a little easier to handle. This one slipped off the edge of the skid when I was tippping it up, and I got scrunched on my big toe but good! Be careful! They are pretty heavy and really awkward. I cheat and use a hoist whenever I can. I cleaned these parts with a combination of sandblaster and electrolysis. I like to treat bare cast iron, especially that which has been sandblasted, with phosphoric acid. This will kill any red rust that has decided to form, dissolve any silicates from the sand that are imbedded in the cast surface, and leave behind a thin, but noticeable, phosphate coating that helps to prevent further rusting. Modern Ethylene Glycol antifreeze products have soluble oils added which serve as rust inhibitors and water pump lubricants, and this prevents lost rusting, but a little help from a layer of phosphate can't hurt! Before I tear one down that I pretty much know will get a new core, I put a couple of quarts of phosphoric acid in the radiator and let it circulate and work for day. This loosens up old rust flakes in the head and block and seems to get the system overall cleaner before teardown and ready for the new radiator. I like to fill any pits on flanges with a suitable epoxy, such as JB Weld, then grind the flanges flat. You will be surprised how flat you can get the tanks surfaces using nothing more than a nice flat piece of concrete. On radiator stop-leak products, I disagree on their broad application as if they only lie there inert until called upon to spring into action and move toward on small leak. Silicate or Zinc Chip, epoxy or goo, they droll and spool and ooze around through the very same radiator core tubes that you are all so protective of, and should be, since you have no water pump on that "A" to speed the flow. After all this work, including a new core, brushable Permatex on every gasket and flange, "Nev-R-Ceez" in the pocket threads, if I didn't have a unit that would hold back just gravity based coolant, with no pressure, without adding back some of the same core-clogging goo that I was trying to remove in the first place, then I don't think I'd consider myself much of a craftsman. No manufacturer that I know ever put stop leak in their cooling systems from the factory. If you repaired it correctly, why should you have to? What's next? "Here's your new tires sir. We had to add Fix-a-Flat to them, but they're holding air...for now." Using a stop leak product does not come without a price and some risk. I've seen more more harm than good done in their name. I would at the very least wait until I had a leak before I considered adding "stuff". I can't view it as a preventative. MHO Frank
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