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Hi I thought I fixed some previous overheating problems but I only helped them. My car was running fine when it was 95F or so over the weekend but now it's 110F outside and my cars cooling system isn't keeping up.

My car is a 2004 Grand AM V6. The radiator was recently replaced with a salvaged one

Partial picture:

This is the bottom half of the radiator(the top half is difficult to photograph). Is that large row of bent fins possibly the reason it can't keep up? Other than that at the top of the radiator there are a few slightly bent lines. Also, isn't there suppose to be some kind of shield to prevent bugs and such from getting in my radiator? I took this picture outside of my car (the silver bit is the outside body of the car)

Is my radiator trash or is it worth trying to straighten the fins and see if it helps or is it not bad enough to have an effect?

Glorfindel
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Earlz
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2 Answers2

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Just having a row of fins slightly bent shouldn't be that bad an issue - what percentage of the radiator is damaged like this? I don't think I have ever had a car with a protective grille in front of the radiator - usually the bugs kill themselves on the radiator fins.

What is possibly more likely is a build up of sludge in the radiator - an indicative check would be to check the fluid flow through the radiator, or just get it flushed through to see if it helps (relatively cheap and quick to do, so it can be worth doing)

Or possibly a faulty pump - worth checking.

Rory Alsop
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to check fins for stoppage use a water hose while engine is running and normal temp--spray water onto radiator and watch to see which tubes do not evaporate hose water--tubes that are not stopped up will dry up quicker because hot water from engine is running though them while the stopped up ones will not evaporate--normally these are the lower part of radiator--

polabo
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