Haven't seen a write up on this, probably because its noobish but I did this today and took some pictures.

Here are materials, ended up not putting in the new hoses because mine were still in really good shape and the new ones felt cheap. Used a Spectra Radiator from Autozone, lifetime warranty and feels solid, well see..... Distilled water, Toyota coolant, spare transmission fluid (DexIII), 10mm/12mm socket with extensions, needle nose for clamps, lots and lots of towels, sandwich.



Started by popping the grill off, clips are a pain but not impossible to not break.



Drained fluid, stock radiator has a stop cock that works but it drains pretty slow.



Unbolted the fan shroud, only 4 bolts and it popped straight off, has to be removed as its bolted to the radiator.




Disconnected all 4 inlet/outlet lines, 2 for engine coolant, 2 for trans oil. When you pull the transmission lines a Sharpie pen makes a good plug. Try not to lose too much transmission fluid.




When you remove the radiator dont remove the 4 bolts that match up with where the socket wrench is, these bolts go to a set of tracks that will come with the new radiator. I wasted a bunch of time trying to work with them before I realized the new ones were already on my replacement. The 4 bolts you want to remove are the ones you access through the removed grill.
Here are the ones you shouldn't remove on the new radiator. When you take off the right 4 bolts the radiator lifts out and the new one seats in with the new tracks. Toyota helped out by putting these teeth in that help hang the radiator while you bolt it in, seat the new one like you took the old one out.





Teeth for hanging.



Install of the new radiator is the reverse of tear down. When you refill the coolant mix 50/50 with the water and fill it up. Once its full, start the truck with the cap off and let the bubbles come out of radiator. Watch the temp gauge for any spike. Top off the radiator after the level goes down once the fluid circulates. I know you can work harder at getting every drop of the old fluid out but my fluid was pretty new when I did this. I drained just over 2 gallons which is what the capacity is so I called it good. Use a flush kit if you want every drop out of the block. Logically you should drain about what you put in so its good to keep track even if its rough.

Done!



If I missed anything please feel free to post

 

hahaha nice bagel sandwhich on your front bumper!! <br />
is that ham and cheese? lol

 

It looks quite good. Did you change out the thermostat and/or the radiator cap while doing the radiator replacement? OEM for both if not.

The OEM hoses are the only ones IMHO that are worth their salt.

The undercarriage of your 4runner looks great. Keep it rolling.

 

Cap and thermostat were replaced with OE when I had my timing belt done so I left them alone. Yeah some of the OE stuff is noticeably better than aftermarket.

 

Well my spectra "premium" radiator is leaking after 800 miles and Autozone wont give me my money back, just another POS radiator. Awesome.

 

Well that stinks. Where is it leaking?

The Koyo I have (1998A) has been trouble free for close to two years.

 

Well that stinks on the radiator failure-good writeup all the same.

I can't figure out however why the timing belt plastic cover had to be removed? Not trying to be a smart aleck-just can't see the need for that to have come off.

I also recommend the KOYO as that is what we used for my friend's 01 Limited.

 

Leaking radiator was spitting fluid at the crimp between the metal coils and the plastic tank at the top. Rad had under 1000 miles on it....... Pulled it, swapped it at effing Autozone, put in a new 20$ bottle of toy coolant. Leaked tranny fluid out of the trans cooling line fitting between the metal and plastic immediatley.........FML.



Called Autozone and threatened them with my credit card company and they agreed to give me my money back if I brought in a receipt for a new radiator I bought from a different company....Bought a Koyo from Go-Parts.com. Turns out they are in Sac so I went and picked it up today. Will post again once the new rad is in and effing Autozone no longer has my money......

SPECTRA RADIATORS AND AUTOZONE BLOW!

 

I should have explained that, it didnt need to come off. I was chasing a burning smell I heard could be something rubbing under the timing belt cover. Had my timing belt and water pump done a while back so I thought I would check it out while I was in there. That cover doesnt need to be taken off for a rad swap.

That smell that bugged me forever ended up being a rear axle seal that finally let go fully and started leaking fluid on my way back from camping. Will be fixing that soon as well.

 

Got the Koyo in last night and so far no trouble. Autozone refunded my money and complained that I returned the Spectra in the Koyo box........ The Spectra and Koyo seem identical except that the Koyo has a nicer drain for dumping fluid. Koyo was 119.00+tax from Go-part.com, went and picked it up in person and they seem pretty cool, refunded all my shipping. Will update if anything exciting happens.

 

Great writeup. I like the Sharpie trick. Why did you do the swap in the first place? Was it leaking, or just to prevent the strawberry milkshake?

 

Anyone swapping radiators should pick up a "burping" kit from your local auto parts store. Basically a funnel with mutliple adapters for multiple radiators and it allows you to fill it up with extra coolant and run the motor and as the air "burps" out it lets more coolant run it. After all the air is out you push the stopper in and pick up the funnel and save the extra coolant. Makes life easy and inexpensive.

Sorry to hear about your radiator troubles but let's keep the rants within the rules please.

:wabbit2:

 

Milk shake prevention mostly, no leak when I did it, just in the subsequent "fixes" lol.

 

I have had a spectra premium in my 4runner for 25K miles with no problem. I guess they had a bad run.

The best milkshake prevention is a aftermarket cooler which has a added bonus of freeing up the transmission cooler in the radiator to heat water for a camp shower.

 

Where did you put the water reservoir? did you have to use a pump?
Can you show a pic of your setup?
This is a good mod so you can take heat off the radiator and really helpful for the shower during winter.

 

should use dex cool with that neodymium compound that completely prevents corrosion orange/ red anti freeze is not enough it has to have that inhibitor that only Dex cool rated coolant has, its critical to having zero corrosion and thus the best heat transfer............ and the overall the best engine power output, the computer scales back the power to maintain the engine temperatures under load regardless of how hard you stomp the peddle, I have been to places so hot that I have had the gasoline break into a rolling pressurizing boil in the tank, and have have experienced the thermal scaling first hand. rpm goes up as the tranny down shifts and the horse power goes away to the point you can find yourself at 4000 rpm doing 25mph in 4x4 swiming though river silt in Yuma's 125 degree heat while the ford in front of you is spewing head gasket...........what was i thinking trying to make money welding fence in the summer for the goverment...........

dex cool...........

while we are on the topic of cooling ever notice how autozone radiators have half as many cooling cross fins per square inch..........get your radiator somewhere else................autozone ratiators will only rob you of power when you really needed it like on along hot hill climb..................

 

Its been 2 weeks or so since I put that Koyo in and its been completely dry under my truck since. Highly recommend them, got mine from go-part.com, $120 before shipping.

 

thanks for the write up. I'm all paranoid now about the milkshake. I better get that koyo on order!

 

On my recent trip to Colorado I had an overheating problem. Did a local search for good service reviews and came up with the local Toyota Dealership in Colorado Springs. Diagnosis was a bad radiator and thermostat as well. The Dealer did an engine flush to clean out the green fluid, replaced OEM radiator, thermostat, upper & lower hoses, new cap, new Toy fluid. Total bill came to a little over $800.
Afterwards, we went to the mountains for a few weeks, and drove the 2002 SR5 2WD 4Runner all the way back to Florida, which is over 2,000 miles and at times were in heat of 105F going through Kansas. No problems.

 

hey, thanks for the help...heres the link again, is this the right one??

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/KOYO-...Q5fAccessories