Saturday, March 15, 2014

Radiators & Saturday Ramblings

In 2011 I replaced my OEM radiator with a CSF "heavy duty" radiator for RadiatorBarn.  It was the first minor Jeep repair/project I did, all because I couldn't afford the $600 price-tag a shop was going to charge me (at the time I was a poor graduate student...heh...I'm still poor).  3 years went by and when the TJ was under going her lift, she started leaking from the rad.  So I've started looking for a replacement, and settled on an all aluminum (say it the British way) 2-core one.  But while I'm replacing that, I might as well replace the water pump (for a high-flow version) and the thermostat, since both are OEM.

My OEM radiator with ~110k miles on it.  You can see the leaks from the plastic cap.

New radiator in and everything hooked back up. I  was so proud of myself...had I only known that it was just the beginning.

Oh the list of things to do to the Jeep just grows and grows.  I need to do an oil change today too.  Then I got thinking about how ugly my front exhaust pipe is, so I'm going to pick up some VHT Flameproof paint (withstands temperatures up to 2000°F) in flat black to coat it.

Front exhaust pipe sitting on  my trans skid plate during the TJ build.

I also want to build a hardtop storage cart today.  Pre-built ones range from $160 to >$200...bump that.  I did some digging and found plans for a wooden cart.

I will add another piece of wood across the front, to add some rigidity to the frame. 
Not my picture, but it represents how I will store the hardtop.
In other news, we are supposed to have torrential downpours tomorrow and even sleet/freezing rain/snow/crap on Monday.  Regardless of the poor weather outlook, I am pretty happy. I got to spend a pretty big chunk of time with my man last night and man did I miss him.  I've got his birthday gift ordered, and now I just need to snoop-out some way to figure out what his favorite cake is. :)

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