can I swap in a gasser radiator?

[79rabbit4dr]

81 1.6l na rabbit

been working on making it a reliable DD, only a couple things left, one of which is that the radiator has a very small leak on passenger side, top/front area. I can see the stain on the front of the radiator and it steams when I come to a stop light. Replaced water pump, all new coolant, it's not over-heating, I just don't want to keep topping off the coolant once a week.

Here's the options, junk yard diesel radiator (if i can locate one near Rexburg ID) or steal the radiator from my 79 gasser rabbit.

Is there any downside to using a gassers radiator? Will it bolt right up?

[8v-of-fury]

rads are practically identical except IIRC the diesl one is about 4 inches longer.. Your chassis will have the mounts for both as they used one chassis for both engine setups.. However i do believe the gasser rad will not produce as efficient cooling as a diesel radiator. (size difference)

But i am not a rad know it all.. so those are just what iv;e picked up from reading

I'm sure it wouldn't hurt.

[theman53]

I think my 83gti with ac has the same radiatior as my diesel without ac. I don't know if all would be the same or not. I got a brand new diesel rad for 86.00 at my local radiator shop for my 81 diesel 2 years ago if that helps. At the time I think advanced auto had them for 120.00. You could look on autohaus and see if the two cars had the same radiator part #'s.

  A shop might be able to fix it. Mine was the metal tank and not the fins or tubes so the guy said it might be cheaper and you'll know it won't leak if you get new.

    The hillbilly way to get you out of a jam is to take some needle nose pliers to the core and pinch it down. Only do this if you DO NOT want to fix this later. If you are going to recycle it no big deal. Be careful though you can rip the fins off the core and make it worse.
Just a thought.

[Jet A]

Id say swap it out, you should be good to go, unless you were having overheating problems before.

4inches less aint gunna kill you....

atleast, thats what i always tell them.

[79rabbit4dr]

Id say swap it out, you should be good to go, unless you were having overheating problems before.

4inches less aint gunna kill you....

atleast, thats what i always tell them.

 :shock:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

nice one! It's already pretty cold here, I don't worry about it too much this winter as I haven't been overheating at all, in fact, i'm not too sure it's all the way up to operating temp. I'd say it hovers around the 1/3 - 1/2 way mark on the dial. Is that normal? I've got water wetter that I can add to it with the gasser radiator so that should help even more. To be honest, i'm not sure if the gasser one is in working order, but it's worth a shot. Thanks for the help, good to know they tapped holes for both sizes in all the frames. Thanks 8v-of-fury!

[mk2diesel]

gassers normally have the overflow tube above  the top of the upper rad hose ( small piece of tubing , clamps and a bolt will plug it)  
 diesels have the return in the upper rad hose )      

yes the rad has lots of cooling .... even a FOX rad will cool at diesel !    

[8v-of-fury]

yup i looked it up some.. Your good to go!

No problem bout the frames being tapped for both.. They are like that for everything..anything that fits in a one chassis of the same gen will fit in to any other chassis of the same genereation. Its pretty cool. I like how VW did that.. very useful nowadays eh?

[AdAm84]

I did some research a while back on this same thing. I found that a ’85-’92 Golf Diesel is 675mm between tanks. This makes it 105mm larger than Mk1. it is Pin mount w/ top outlet pointing straight back so it should work. then use the rad hoses for the MK2 since they are longer to accept the longer rad. As far as the shroud and fan i have no clue.

[79rabbit4dr]

UPDATE:

I swapped over the `79 gasser rabbit radiator into the `81 diesel rabbit today. FIT PERFECT...

EXCEPT that there is the issue of the extra return lines to the old reservoir. The top return line i just capped off with a small rubber stopper (also stolen from my parts gasser, on the intake) and the bottom one i left in place. Now I have two reservoir's. I'd like to get rid of the diesel one and simplify it a bit but i'm not sure how to delete the bottom line from the old reservoir. Looks like it goes down a T's into a line from the firewall/t-stat housing.

Any suggestions?

Oh, I actually did have one other issue with plug-n-play, the sensor on the driver side wasn't quite interchangeable because of the plastic cap on the wires, i'll have to take pictures tomorrow to explain but I just took the one off the diesel and put it in place of the gasser one. Went to my sister apt and then grocery shopping, NO LEAKS!!!! woohoo! I still can't get the fan to come on though, and the coolant temp gauge is only showing about 1/3 up. I don't have a grill at the moment, so the radiator is completely exposed up front, it's been between 30-50∘during the day, would that be causing it to stay so cool? Should I be covering up part of the radiator like the big rigs do? What does that accomplish anyway? Sorry for the noob question but it's my first diesel.

[8v-of-fury]

you can cover the front up if you wish too.. It will help a lot to keep the rad longer.

Hense what it accomplishes.. it keeps the warm air in the engine compartment instead of bringing in colder air via the front of the car. Your choice to cover it.. i dont beleive it is neccessary. but you never know.

[maxfax]

I'd put a screen or somthing in front of the radiator for projection from road debris...  

THe idea of covering the radiator is to block the airflow through it.. Less air flowing through it = less cooling..  Ford example, if you cover half the radiator only half of it will be exchanging the heat to the air...

[79rabbit4dr]

How can I delete the old diesel reservoir, has anyone done this before?

[maxfax]

The gasser radiaor has a fill spout on it correct?  Then just a standard overflow resavoir....     I think if you just plug the line off the bottom of the diesel resavoir you should be alright..  

Not as good at bleeding the air out of the system like the original diesel setup, but it would work..

Another though could be to elimintat the gasser resavoir, connect the small line that goes to that to the small line on the diesel resavoir.. Then remove the gasket from the borrom of the rad cap...

[79rabbit4dr]

maxfax
Yes, the gasser one has a fill spout attached to the driver side.

After going to the store and buying the necessary hoses and caps to "delete" the diesel reservoir, I think I'm just going to leave it on there. It hasn't given me any trouble yet (drove it a couple times) and I don't see any reason why it ever would. I've just got the small line off the top of the diesel reservoir capped, that shouldn't cause any over-pressured situations, should it?

Here are some pix of the setup to help explain.

top and bottom lines to pump/block


diesel overflow


gasser rad installed,


that thing in the hood latch (above pic) is a piece of tubing w/ a plug in it, that's what I was going to use to plug the port where the lower diesel reservoir tube would have connected into the system.

 On the gassers, these ports are just fed back into the system like this:

[maxfax]

The only problem I could see with having the extra tank in the system is the extra radiator cap...  WHen the system cools  and the coolant contracts there is a vent in the cap that allows air in..   With the diesel setup it would do just that.... WIth the gasser setup it is designed to push extra coolant into the expansion tank until cool down then it will suck it back into the system...


Otherwise it shouldn't hurt anything, and it will give you some extra coolant capacity..    Drive it a bit, if you notice the gasser expansion tank getting full, and the radiator getting low you may have to find some way to plug off the vent in teh cap on the diesel expansion tank...