[Joe Galowitch]

I know some members have replaced there radiator plus cac, so I am most curious one what the average cost should be. I want all hoses water pump hoses,thermostat and anything related to cooling system.

[rheavn]

Atlas Radiator in Corpus Christi, TX made the original CAC & radiator for your coach.  They can still make the same for you and the current price is $3718+shipping.  6-8 week production time.

[djimellis]

I have replaced my radiator twice. The original rad lasted 29 years. The next one lasted just over a year and cost about $2200. The third rad, which is far more robust than the second cost exactly the same $2200. The second rad was a rush job as we were way off the beaten track at the time & needed a rad immediately. After 2 repairs to that rad I found that there were people trying to get a class action law suit going against the manufacturer.
The third rad was installed last winter in Mesa, Az. It is by far a more robust radiator. I expect it to last at least 10 years if not more. Hope this helps. 

[Joe Galowitch]

I have replaced my radiator twice. The original rad lasted 29 years. The next one lasted just over a year and cost about $2200. The third rad, which is far more robust than the second cost exactly the same $2200. The second rad was a rush job as we were way off the beaten track at the time & needed a rad immediately. After 2 repairs to that rad I found that there were people trying to get a class action law suit going against the manufacturer.
The third rad was installed last winter in Mesa, Az. It is by far a more robust radiator. I expect it to last at least 10 years if not more. Hope this helps. 

Thanks guys I am into this job at around $4000 with us doing the labor. I guess with all in seems close.

[Dallas2254]

I don't know what average is but I do know what its like to loose a charge air cooler CAC and a radiator at almost the same time and get lucky that Newell just happen to have both in inventory while I was on a 6500 mile trip this past month.  Lost the CAC somewhere between Seattle and Billings Montana.  Getting 1.5 mpg and doing 15 miles per hour over the continental divide was a leading indicator.  Called Newell and they told me that I would have to remove both radiators to replace the CAC.  They just happened to have both radiators and I decided to replace them both since I felt it would be a good time to do both even thought he engine radiator was working fine.

Had Newell Fed EX via truck, both radiators to Sioux Falls and I would limp the coach to a repair place there.  $7400 for both Radiators and another $5000 for labor and additional parts and I was back on the road.  Glad I replaced the lower radiator because a serious electrolysis problem was going on an entire middle of the radiator (1 foot diameter hole) had eaten way the fins.  We put a grounding strap on the head of the engine to the frame that was never installed to fix that problem.  

The only hiccup was that all the mechanics at the repair shop were scratching their head when I showed up to the repair shop the next morning and told me they could not figure out how to get the radiators out without cutting the side of the coach off.  That was a bad omen and due to their policy I could not be in the shop to help them.  I told them no way and showed them pictures from this web site of someone else that had posted pictures of how to take the radiators out.  The only issue was that my radiator setup extend 4 inches lower than other coaches.  The radiator fan guard needs to be removed with the radiators attached to it so that is not easy with the little clearance issues.  Newell confirmed this.  Well anyway,  the Shop foreman did not want me in the shop and the mechanics did not want to work on the coach.  I did not take 'no' for an answer, went around the back side of the repair shop, put on my shop cloths and pretended to be one of the guys and spent from 10 am in the morning (Friday) through to 4 am in the morning Saturday working with a few of the younger guys replacing the radiators.  They went home and came back a few hours later and we finished it up by 10 Am Saturday.  Lucky for me I have a kegerator with really good draft beer stashed under my coach  (fits a 1/6 keg with no room to spare in a yeti type cooler tipped up on its side with a refrigerator unit meant for a boat mounted onto the back side to keep the beer at what ever temp I want,  I degrees) and that was enough of an enticement to keep these guys working on the coach till 4 am in the morning and getting paid too.   The owner of the shop is very liberal with his employees and allows them to use the shop for their own purposes on the weekends.  Like working on their own cars and trucks so it was a pretty fun time on Saturday when everyone was there and the party was at my bus.  

So here is what I learned.  

-  Mechanics with all the training in the world will probably never run across the complexity of removing a radiator from a NEWELL and left to their own, will never figure it out by themselves.  Well all except for a couple in Sioux falls who had me and the Newell guru site on their side.
-  Free 32 degree draft beer is a very big incentive to call home and tell their significant other that they have a big job to do and wont be home.  NO drinking until the job was done or it was 4 am Saturday morning (which ever came first)
-  Have plenty of bandaids around because there will be a lot of blood spilled by everyone getting those radiators out.
-  Last, but not least, double check for shop rags that are stuffed very deep into both sides of the Charge air cooler (CAC) before installing the radiator.  I have no idea why they stuff shop rags deep in side the Charge air cooler collectors where ever they build them.   Engine will not start due to air starvation and rags will clog the intake manifold on the back side.  

 I know I pulled out about 6 rags out of the CAC before mounting it  Putting the radiators in and then filling the radiator with more than 20 gallons of radiator fluid, tuning the valves and injectors and then not having it start was a really big downer.  We retuned the valves two more times thinking we were missing something (three more hours of removing the bathroom floor twice).  

I had seen a similar problem before in my youth so I asked the mechanics to break open the intake manifold clamp to see if the engine would run with no intake pipe and just and open manifold.  Guess what,  6 rags were clogging the manifold right up to getting into the intake valves.  We removed them and the engine started up fine.  So we reinstalled the manifold with new gaskets and the engine would not start.  Just black smoke everywhere.  So now we knew there were rags on the inlet side of the CAC and that was the worst place to have them.  No access without removing the radiators again.  So we decided to do the only thing we could do.... tap the beer keg and restart the entire process again a few hours later.  I woke up three hours later to a bunch of the mechanics in the shop poking around and all of a sudden it hit me.  I had a very powerful shop vac under the coach and I could break the tube behind the turbo and try to suck the rags out of the inlet side of the CAC.  

The shop mechanics were thrilled with the possibility.  they had never heard of that before and it made sense to them.  It worked.  We sucked 6 more rags out the charge air cooler for a total of more than 18 rags in all  the equivalent of one bed sheet.  Engine ran prefect (better than ever in fact) and we were out of there.  The 10 or so mechanics in the shop were glad to see the coach go but they really like working along side me because I was the only customer they had met that actually swore with them and not at them when things were looking impossible.  I had a pretty good time too.  Mots of the mechanics were 30 years younger than me and I knew more than they did about engines and other uses for tools in their tool boxes.  They got schooled and I got to feel young again although a little more wear and tear on my body than I wanted.

I am having the shop ship the two old radiators back to my home address and I will have them rebuilt.   The coach is running very well now and I suspect it was because the CAC had been leaking for some time and just finally snapped.  Quite a few of the valves and some injectors were off too.  It is quite obvious that NEWELL did not think this radiator design and mounting out very well when it came to removal.  The upper CAC radiator is suspended from the top and bolts onto the bottom radiator that is bolted to the bottom of the enclosure.  It seems that will all the flexing of the coach and the fact that the two radiators are actually 1/8 of an inch off on one end and 3/8 of an inch off on the other side.  When forcing them to come together, that would over stress the radiator and cause them to fail like my CAC did.  I put steel shims of various widths between them before bolting them together so it is one contiguous radiator with little or no stress issues now.  


The lower radiator was failing because of electrolysis.  The head not being grounded with a proper grounding strap.  Seems intuitive that the engine itself should be grounded but most of the radiator fluid going back to the radiator comes from the head and that slight difference in the path of electrons is enough to carry them to the weaker metal of the radiator and cause the copper to fail.  

I had similar problems with my 60 foot trawler yacht a few years back so I could see the obvious issues with the NEWELL radiator system and electrolysis. 

All I can say, is if it had not been for some of the comments I had read in this web site about radiator repairs and replacements I would not have picked up on the problems and issues we faced with my coach.  Thank you to all of you that mentioned something in your posts that seemed a little off or problematic because it helped me get though this ordeal.

[folivier]

Nice job and write-up!

[Richard]

@"Dallas2254"

You might want to check the bolt tightness on the fan several times over the next couple of hundred miles. It is a tapered fit, and the consequences of the bolt coming loose and the fan spinning into the radiator will test your patience and pocketbook.

I use a 1/2 box wrench with an offset. I can just wiggle my left arm through the fan blades and put the wrench on the bolt by braille.

[Nebster]

As another data point, I swapped our radiator and CAC for about $9k last year. I used a CAT shop for the work, and they didn't seem to have much trouble removing the doors as necessary and pulling the entire thing. Well, if something like $4,500 in labor is not much trouble!

Maybe Newell has improved the access over the years.

[Keith Jordan]

As another data point, I swapped our radiator and CAC for about $9k last year.  I used a CAT shop for the work, and they didn't seem to have much trouble removing the doors as necessary and pulling the entire thing.  Well, if something like $4,500 in labor is not much trouble!

Maybe Newell has improved the access over the years.

Last time I was at Newell one of the techs said the new ones are worse.They have not had to replace one yet but he said he hoped he would not get the first one because it was going to be a nightmare.