How To Replace Radiator 1992-2001 Chevy Suburban PART 1

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Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20 years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly. That's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video, we'll be installing a radiator in a 1999 Chevy Suburban. Same as most 88 to 2000 trucks and SUVs. I need a 10 mm socket extension for most of the fan shroud bolts, 11/16 socket and ratchet for the protecting pan underneath. Pliers open and wrenches, catch pan, anti-freeze, funnel and a hammer.

Basically, the first step is we got our new radiator out and we just want to take a quick look make sure that everything lines up. This side we've got the radiator hose and then we got these 2 larger fittings. Then you can see over there there's a hose and then 2 larger fittings. Down even lower you can see that little kind of wing knot looking thing is your petcock. That's how you drain the radiator so we know we'll be draining it from there. Then on the other side, we can see on the new radiator we've got the fill. It has additional blocked off section and then it has 2 fittings and then a lower hose. Then you can see on our vehicle, you can see here's the fill. There is no fitting there. It must be an option that this truck doesn't have obviously. Then here's another fitting and then further down is where this hose goes in. Then you can see way down in there this hose here the one that goes to the bottom of the radiator. I'm going to remove actually the top of the radiator fan shroud here it's7 bolts, one there, one down there. There it is, here, here, here, here and then the same two down on the sides and the same two down on the sides here.

Remove those 7 bolts and to pull those parts out of the fan shroud here, the shroud comes up. I'm just going to us a little hammer. Knock that harness out and pull the harness out. Go underneath here and what you need to do is remove the skid plate and it's just 4 bolts here, right up there, and on the other side one, two, three and that's the fourth one. I'm going to remove that, that will give me access to the bottom of the fan shroud. With the skid plate removed you cannot see that we can easily access the two bolts. The one here, then there's one back over here we'll take those out. Like I see, everything pretty good here. I'm going to do is take some penetrating oil and I'm going to spray down these fittings here.

On these fittings here on this side too. Make sure I can get those out nice and easy. I've got in the bottom, basically just twist it so it's really not in my way and you can see down in here and I'm sorry the lighting is not better. This is my drain I'm just using a little stubby screwdriver and it kind of goes in there and twisting out. Then once I get to a certain point. I'm draining the fluid out. While my radiator continuous to drain I'm going to remove these two 10mm bolts which are basically the radiator mounts. Now I remove the bolts and then these brackets kind of come up not easily but they come up and off.

Your radiator hose which basically I'm just taking a big set of pliers and I'm squeezing this clamp and I'm backing that clip off the hose and then I can pull the hose off the radiator. Now you can see I got the radiator, the hose clamp back there. Now what I want to do is take hold of this and twist it and once I can start twisting it then I'll pull it off the radiator. What I want to do is take this hose and just kind of probably take something and make sure it stays up here. As long as it stays up here none of the fluids and it's going to come out. Next step I'm going to take is, I'm going to disconnect these lines. Use a 25/32s and these over are 5/8s and even on this old truck this is a '99, I already tried them and they did come off pretty easily. I disconnect both those. The bottom one will leak, what you want to do is after you take the bottom one that you want to try and lift it up and maybe tie it up to a hose or something. Same thing, this side is the oil cooler.

Once you get the bottom you want to try and lift it up and tie it off somewhere that it's higher than the level of the oil in the engine in that way it won't leak out all over the place. You will get a little bit of transmission fluid and a little bit of oil that comes out have a catch pan ready. To show you what's going on here. I've got basically the radiator almost out. The only thing left you can see down here is the lower radiator hose. You can see this ear of the clamp here and then the other ear is way down underneath. Basically I'm just going to pull the radiator up as high as I can then get my pliers on there and get that clamp off. When I put it together I'll put the ears of that clamp more around this way or on the top where you can get to them rather than down around the backside like there now. Pull that hose off. What you just heard was basically all that anti-freeze coming out of the motor.

I'm trying to get as much of it into the pan as possible. Now get everything out of the way. What you hear is the radiator deciding to get stuck on some hoses and stuff. It's up and out. Now we have the radiator out. We can see down in there that's still the water draining from the engine. All of these leaves and stuff you're going to grab a shop vac and vacuum all that stuff out. That ends part one. If you want to see a detailed reinstallation of the radiator checkout part two same title just part two.

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