Radiator Stop Leak

S

Safety Guy

Joined
Mar 9, 2001
Messages
1,794
Okay, on a lark I'm posting this to see what kind of results others have had. My '89 K Car has sprung a slow leak from the radiator and I bought some Prestone stop leak to try. I'm putting it in after I post this.

I seem to recall using stop leak in the past, and I think it worked okay.

Anyone else used it? Good or bad results? I don't intend this to be a permanent fix, but hope it holds for a few more months.

Hey, if my car breaks down, that's a potential tactical problem!
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Karl, cheap car owner, and all around cheap kinda guy

(except guns and knives, of course)

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"Celebrate the diversity of inclusive, self-esteem nurturing, multicultural weapons arts." Karl Spaulding, The Safety Guy
 
Hey Karl,
If these are the the aluminum shavings in a little plastic tube, yep, I've used it. Back in '85 or so when I had my '72 Gran Torino (think Starsky & Hutch) it worked fine and as it ended up- as far as I was concerned- it was a permanent fix. It held for almost another 2 years before I sold it. Sure beat putting in a new radiator. :)
 
For small leaks in the radiator the best product is called "Bar's
Leak". It is in a small plastic bottle with yellow writing on it and what looks like rabbit turd in heavy syrup
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inside the bottle. Works great.

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C.O.'s-"It takes balls to work behind the walls "
 
Was on my way home from the 1000 islands on a sunday afternoon,stopped for ice cream in a small town.Went to leave and saw a greenish yellow puddle under my car.Crap what am I going to do,well a small store had some of this stop leak stuff and we got home just fine thank you.
 
The best thing in an emergency is to use a pair of womens tights or stockings......er, hang on, maybe that's not the radiator I'm thinking of.
Sure, we all have to try one way or another
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I have used the radiator stop leak several times. ( I just now got a car from the 90's) It has always worked great. I used some kind of stop leak for my power steering and that worked really well too.

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Brian
The first knife was probably used to cut stuff.
 
I second Jailhack...I used Bars Leak and kept my old cars radiator from leaking for 4 years.
Nick
 
Well guys, it's been almost 24 hours since I poured the Prestone goop in. So far so good. I had to add some antifreeze an hour ago before I came home from school. I figure with our warmer weather today, and all the plain water I had been adding, it may have just gotten hot and boiled out a bit. I don't see any leakage now. Hope the little bit of antifreeze I added ups the boiling point.

If I get more leakage, I'll try the Bars Leak stuff and see if that does it.

Thanks for your input!

Karl
 
I have used Bar's Leak many times over the years and it always worked well. I was amazed at the size hole it would plug.

When friends have used other brands with poor luck I have told them to try Bar's. They did with satisfactory results.

Good luck!

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John F Jensen
"Your Quality Distributor"
619-475-3633
 
I had an old Plymouth Reliant that I used one of the radiator stop-leak products on. I no longer remember the brand I used. It did fix the radiator leak. After that I had a lot of problems with the car overheating. I theorize that the product also clogged some of the other holes or conduits in the cooling system. Pressure flushes of the cooling system would help the problem for a while, then it would come back. I finally gave the car away to a charity.
 
These sealants work but they should be used sparingly! While they seal leaks they can also clog passages that need to be open for cooling or in the case of the heater core, heat. The passages in the heater core are much smaller than those in the radiator and clog very easilly. I generally use Alumaseal or Copperseal when I *have* to use a sealant. I start with half a tube (which usually does the trick). BarsLeak will seal bigger holes but it clogs other stuff up faster too. I`ve seen a lot of cars over the years that had cooling problems or very poor heat due to the use of sealants so use it if you must but don`t over do it.
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Marcus
 
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