Have a D6H ll with leaking radiator. Have heard it is not good to replace individual segments of radiator. Should all segments be replaced? Leak may be at seals on ends of segments but a couple of segments on the right side are pretty flat from fan debris hitting them. Any shortcuts or tricks to removing radiator?
You dont need to remove the complete radiator fairly easy to unbolt and remove the top tank then the cores can be removed one at a time they can be removed through the front . and there is no problem just replacing individual cores. I done it more times than I can remember and its never been an issue
They make a radiator comb for straightening those fins.... ask your parts store personnel.
I'll second the advice. You can disassemble everything in situ without removing the radiator. The most likely cause of your problem is the seals at the end of the individual cores, not the cores themselves although you might be unlucky and find a core with a leak. Cores can be replaced individually, that's the big selling point of that type of radiator. A good tip when reassembling is to get the tubes at the end of the cores and the tank surface where the seal mounts really clean (as in polished) and to use a proper rubber lubricant on the seals when installing the cores into the radiator. Do NOT under any circumstances use petroleum-baed lubricants like Vaseline on the seals. It will cause them to fail in short order.
Thanks for the info. If I understand PAcattech I do not have to remove the pins on the radiator guard and fold it over to remove the radiator sections. Just unbolt the top tank and remove the cores through the front? I have a radiator comb, but I think the fins on several of the sections are worn pretty thin. Sounds like overall process is pretty easy. Cat service manual had me worrying.
Not done a D6 personally but certainly on the bigger tractors the hardnose does not have to be tilted (getting the pins out is a challenge in itself if you have to do that) to change cores or core seals on the radiator. I've looked at the Service Manual and although it says to tilt the hardnose before removing the radiator and then disassembling it I still think you can do it without all that work. Beware, though - it might be extremely tight and need a bit of "out of the box" thinking to get it apart. The Service Manual procedures are the "official" way of doing the job but remember that in almost every case it's not the only way of doing it. Personally I'd approach the challenge something like "I need to get this radiator apart. What's the easiest way to achieve that?". You might just be surprised just how much work you can save yourself. I could equally be talking so much BS and the hardnose has to be tilted anyway. Only you can figure that out by standing there looking at the iron.
This forum is great...... with that said, I had a mishap with my D-6H where the fan assembly mounting bolts sheared off sending this enormous rotating mass down and into the radiator sections. Needless to say I got the book out and started at square one, I made it all the way to the final step of removing the two rear pins in the hard nose when I started realizing this was going to be a project of its own.:Banghead I started at 8 am and it was approaching 5pm so I washed up, decided to look in here and I did a search " removing a d-6 radiator" and low and behold this thread popped up. I followed the brief comments here and had the cores on the floor in no time. Thank you to Mr. Nige and the HEF crew for this great site and some good advice.
I've seen book times and procedures for jobs, some fairly involving and some reasonably straight forward. As an independent, I can "get away" with pushing and pulling to get things done. Main agents can't do this, risk of damage is one thing and doing a strip down taking a few hours to replace something beneath it rather than a half hour struggling... the longer it takes, the more they earn. Back to the subject, removal of individual cores is pretty straight forward. I found removing the header most awkward.
On some end ones you have to remove a center core first, bring a shop vac, biggest problem we se is keeping dirt out, you will understand after you remove one, climbing over push arms get old too, a helper makes it easier.
I took the lower hose off before I tilted it back and will flush all the crap I can out of the lower tank, good call on the keeping it out of the tank. It seems almost impossible.
Looks like I'm going to have to tackle this same project on mine. Our local Cat shop (Peterson) says it can't be done without tilting the nose. Mine has a lot of bent over and worn through fins and its causing it to overheat so i;m going to go ahead and replace the most worn sections. Glad I found this post agian because I was not looking forward to this project
We ended up tilting the hard nose and removing the entire radiator. Fabricated a puller to pull the pins. Went fairly smooth. You just remove two pins and fold the nose over. I will caution you if you go that way be very careful when you fold over the hard nose. Once it gets to a certain spot it will fall all the way down and can be very dangerous. Folding the nose over did provide a good chance to clean areas you can not normally get to. One thing I have learned on this site. when it involves Caterpillar you can not go wrong with the advice and recommendations Nige so helpfully gives. He is a top notch pro!!
Yes he certainly is. Just curious why you decided to tilt the nose ? I just have a feeling I'll be lancing those pins out if I go that route.
The main reason we tilted the nose was to take the radiator completely out and take it to radiator shop. I replaced all of the segments with Cat parts. Made a puller out of piece of pipe that would fit over the holding pin. Welded plate with hole in it on the end of the pipe. Put washer and never seize on bolt and screwed it into the pin. I guess we got lucky. The pins were tight but they did come on out. If the pins had not come out I would have repaired like Nige recommended.
Can you let me know how to remove the top tank, I can see in the parts manual, there are two bolts on the front that hold the baffle plate, and I've taken them out, and can see there are three on top that look like the heads are engine side, is that it
Ok, I've just removed all six sections of the radiator, (D6R LGP 2007 mod) due to finding a serious leak at prestart yesterday. I couldn't pinpoint where the water was coming from. With the radiator filled and cap back on I started the engine to let the water expand, and maybe see the leak site, but it was confusing, and with the engine running, the water was being spread around by the fan, and bubbling out of the third from left side core about a quarter way down the section (in the end this core was worn but no leaks). So, this morning I striped it down and removed all six sections and upon what I found I'm replacing all six sections, along with all the top connecting little hoses and clamps, top 'rubber' spacers between the top of the cores and the brackets, and the bottom core seals. Here's the procedure, remove the two inspection plates either side of the lift cylinder junction box, and in there with the core tops and the little u-shaped connecting hoses, back against the filler tank is two 3/4" bolts that connect the baffle that runs the entire length of the cores, to the filler tank holding bracket. Then from the right side of the engine, up on top of the filler tank is three 3/4" bolts that connect the tank to the same bracket that holds the baffle, remove these and the tank can be pulled back toward the engine giving enough room to remove that bracket, and pull the baffle up and back enough to get the core top brackets off, but not until after removing the connecting little hoses and clamps, and after removing the three bolts from each of the three brackets that hold the top of the cores at the front. Now you can remove the top brackets, and the cores. The top brackets don't just pull off, I had to use a pry bar between the core and the bracket levering them in a few places to get them lose, and they had been put in place with rubber grease. Once loosened and hammered up with a length of 1" pipe the cores were pried out easy. I got a lot of rubbish all over the bottom tank removing the cores, even with a wash down you can't get at the back of the cores. With all the cores out and bottom gaskets still in place I removed the 1" drive plug under the tank drain tap and let all the water go and followed it with clean water and removal of those bottom gaskets. Now its spotless and ready for the reversal, to done. Something had hit one of the cores, some time back, giving a small leak now and then, until it finally released more and became a do it now job. Three of the cores were original, and three had been replaced, the original ones were sand blasted and very worn, the other three had inside suspect hit marks and we'll keep them for repair and put them on the shelf for the next ten years. Straight forward job.