Chevrolet GMC Cadillac Radiator TRQ RDA82661

Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

What's up guys? My name's Andy from 1A Auto. In this video I'm going to be removing and reinstalling a radiator in this 2008 Chevy Silverado work truck. If you need this part or other parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.

Disconnect this mass airflow sensor connector. Just push down on the lock. Pull the connector off, and we'll loosen up this worm clamp right here. Just use a straight blade screwdriver. Loosen that up. You can take this snorkel off here, slide it off. We're going to do the same on this side. There's a worm clamp over here on the throttle body, right there, loosened that up. Slide this off. There's a little hose right here that just connects to the valve cover on the passenger side. Take that hose off and then set this aside.

I'm just going to grab the front side of the mass airflow sensor, or the front side of the air box and just slide up. Oops. Just grab the whole air box, slide it out of your way. There's some tabs on the bottom that lock into a grommet, and then this actually, we're going to have to move this. Just slide this off there. Have to reinstall that, right here. Because when it goes together, it's got to push down. We'll just take that, just take a straight blade screwdriver, just push this in here.

It's kind of difficult sometimes. Might be easier with a smaller like pocket screwdriver. And make sure that's all the way down. So that's good. Set that aside. Alright, next I'm going to take these two 10 millimeter bolts out. These hold the transmission cooler lens on. Take those two out, use a 10 millimeter socket and a ratchet. And normally these are caged so you can just slide them out of the way. What that means is that the bolt's not going to come off of that bracket. It'll just stay on there, because the little thing on there. Then we'll do the same for the bottom one.

Now we're going to disconnect these electrical connectors. There's two of them. Just push down on the tab, then wiggle the connector down just like that. We'll do the same for the other side. Sometimes these connectors get a little stuck. Take a little screwdriver, and pry against the lock. And then push it down, and you'll be able to get it out. Just like that. Wiggle it out. Now we're going to take these two bolts out, this one here, one over here, going to use a 13 millimeter socket and a ratchet.

Take those bolts out. Now we're going to grab the fan shroud, and we're going to just lift up. There's some clips right here on this side where this clips into the radiator. You got to get it out of the way of the coolant upper radiator hose. I'm actually going to shift this way. So I'll slide this side up first. Get this out, and pull that straight out just like that. So there's no drain on this radiator. So I'm going to have to release this clamp and take this hose off and that's how we're going to drain the radiator. To get this clamp off, I'm actually going to use this tool.

We sell this tool at 1AAuto.com. It will go onto the clamp right here, and then when I tighten this up, it's going to tighten up on this cable and that will open up the clamp so that we can release it. So I want to make sure I have a bucket underneath to drain the coolant, and then I'm going to tighten up on this clamp. And because this clamp is really rusty, I think it actually just broke on me. Just going to use a pry bar and be careful if you're reusing your radiator, not to ruin the fins or anything on the radiator.

There we go, start my drain. Take this tool off, release that, set that aside. And here is the clamp and as you can see it broke right there. There's the other part of the clamp. This would go on like this and that's what puts pressure on the coolant hose to secure it to the lower radiator. And it looks like this broke because it's rusted right there. This broke before, you can see that broke off. And then it wasn't able to clamp the radiator good enough. So that's why we're getting a coolant leak. And then when I tried to compress this, this side broke, because you can see it's a little shinier right there.

Now we're going to take this upper radiator hose off. I'm going to use some hose clamp pliers, just release this hose clamp. Just work it back and forth. Get the hose clamp off this area, then we can grab the hose and just rock back and forth. Twist it, pull the hose off. I'm going to remove this hose. This hose goes to the coolant reservoir. I'm just going to take this hose clamp off, my hose clamp pliers don't fit in there, so I'm just going to use some needle-nose pliers. Squeeze those, pull that hose off.

Alright. Next we're going to take off these transmission cooler lines. There's a little cap on the line, slide the cap off. So there's a little lock ring in here, kind of like a snap ring. They make special tools, this is one of the plastic ones. Generally the plastic ones don't work. I just have not had any luck with them. You slide the tool on, and then you twist it, and it's supposed to spread the fingers and then you grabbed the line, slide it out, and it came out at that time. But normally they're pretty difficult to take out that way.

But what you can do, you can take a pick as well. And just grab, you need to find the side that's open, just slide underneath the clip, just using a 90 degree pick, and then slide the little clip out. Then once the clip's off, then you can just grab the line, pull it out. Okay, so to reinstall the clip, if you're going to reuse the radiator or you're going to have to reuse this, you're going to slide one side of the clip in, while the line is out, and then you're going to just rock the clip all the way around, and then it'll lock in place.

So when you disconnect these lines, you're going to want a different drain bucket, because it's going to leak transmission fluid, and you don't want that leaking into your coolant bucket. So we're going to take these two bolts out. Use a 13 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Take that one out. Alright, now we're going to grab the radiator. I'm just going to slide it up, tip it back a little bit, and then we can pull it right out.

When you're putting a new radiator in, you're going to want to make sure you take these rubber grommets off the base and swap them over to the new one. They just normally come right off, just like that. Same with the other side. Put those back on, and then same with the top. These rubber grommets come off as well. You can take this center pin out first, slide this out, and transfer it over to your new one. Then just slide it in, and slide this little center thing in. Just like that.

Now, we're going to take this radiator, slide it back into position. You want to line up those two grommets on the lower part, and it looks pretty good. That's good over there. We're going to take these two bolts, get these started. And same with the other one. Take my 13 millimeter socket and ratchet, tighten these down. Snug that one down, then I'm going to do the same for the other side. Snug that one down.

Now, I'm going to replace this hose clamp that was broken before, so I'll just take this. Make sure you find one that fits the hose properly. Slide the hose back on. Now you want the hose clamp to go as close to the bump. You can feel where the radiator actually is, there's a little bump there. And then we'll take a screwdriver and just tighten this hose clamp up. You don't want to tighten it too tight because the radiator is plastic and you'll crack it. Snug, twist it a little bit, see if it's tight enough. Tighten it a little bit more.

Alright, that should be good. You can always tighten it up more if it's leaking. I'm going to reattach this transmission cooler line. Lock that on and then put the little retainer over that. Just holds the clip in there. Do the same for the top one. Then I'll reinstall this hose that goes to the coolant reservoir. Just take my needle-nose pliers, press this on and then line this clamp up where it went before. Just like that.

Now we'll reinstall this upper radiator hose, slide it in position. We'll take some hose clamp pliers and move this hose clamp. If this is worn out like the other one, then you'd want to replace this one as well. Ours is still pretty good. Just like that, nice and tight. All right, now we're going to take this cooling fans, just going to slide it, generally the same way we pulled it out. That in there. It is slightly easier, if you have the coolant hose off, you have a little bit more room, but it's not impossible to do it without it.

Get those lined up. Now we'll take these bolts, get these bolts started, same with this one. And I'm going to take my 13 millimeter socket and ratchet, tighten these bolts down. Snug that down. You want to do the same with the other side. Then we're going to connect the electrical connectors. Just get this lined up. Lock it down. Same with this one. We're going to install this bracket bolts that go to the cooler lines, the transmission cooler lines. Get those lined up. I'll take my 10 millimeter socket and ratchet, and tighten them down. Alright, and just snug that down. We'll do the same with this one.

Alright, now we're going to reinstall the air box. If you have trouble installing this, you could separate it and install the base first, but what we want to do is this little piece is going to go in this groove here and these two ears are going to go into those grommets down there. So slide that in position, like this. And once you have it in position, you just push down on the air box. Now we want to line this snorkel up. We're going to line this up over the throttle body, and then keep in mind this hose, we're going to have to attach that hose as well.

Slide that on. Slide that on. Then we'll slide this in position as well, on the mass airflow sensor. Now I can take my straight blade screwdriver, tighten this worm clamp up here, just snug, and then, same on the throttle body. Make sure this is all the way down. Just push it down if you have to. And just snug that up as well. Make sure it's nice and tight. I'll take this connector, connect the mass airflow sensor, lock it in place. Right, now I'm going to add coolant to the system. I'm going to use this funnel. We actually sell this funnel 1AAauto.com. There's a different adapters you can use. This will fit right on the coolant reservoir.

Now in this vehicle, you don't add the coolant through the radiator, there's no radiator cap on this vehicle. You do it all through the coolant reservoir. And you're going to want to make sure you add the appropriate coolant. You want to check the owner's manual and use a 50/50 mix of coolant and water. Okay, so we're going to add the coolant level up to the line right here. That's where the coolant level should be. And we're going to run the vehicle and we're going to constantly monitor the coolant level while the engine is running.

I can leave this funnel on here. Sometimes the fluid level will come up here and then a lot of times there'll be an air bubble in the engine and it'll burp. It'll once the thermostat opens up, it will let the air bubble through and that'll cause the coolant to go back down. So you want to monitor that, make sure that you add coolant when it goes down. And after about 10 minutes, that should be good. Then you can come over here and carefully check the hose, the upper radiator hose, and make sure this is hot. Be careful, it should be hot.

And once that's hot, that means your thermostat is open and all the coolant's cycling through. And then you can shut the vehicle off. Let it cool down, recheck your levels. And when it's cooled down, take it for a test drive, drive it again and recheck your level one more time, and you should be good to go.

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Disconnect the battery. We'll disconnect the negative terminal using an eight millimeter wrench. Loosen this up and take that off. Set it aside.

I'm gonna remove this cover using an eight millimeter socket. Loosen this bolt up and slide this cover up and out.

Now we're gonna take this intake snorkel off. I'm gonna loosen up the clamp right here. It needs an eight millimeter socket or a straight-blade screwdriver. And then same over here.

And there's a bracket right here that holds the coolant hose on. This one is broken, but just take a pry tool and just pry that away. And just slide this off, wiggle it out, and take it out.

Now I'm going to remove the airbox. Disconnect the connector on the mass airflow sensor. Just pull this tab back a little bit and push down on the connector. Now just grab the box and pull straight up and out. Some retainers right there that hold it down.

You don't have to remove the tire to access the lower radiator hose, but we took it off so you can see. Lower radiator hose is right here.

Now there's no drain on this radiator, so we're gonna have to take off that hose. Just gonna use a hose clamp tool. Just move this wire out of my way. I'm just gonna use a trim tool just to remove this retainer for this wire, and just slide that out of the way. Now I can access the clamp.

And slide the hose clamp tool over the clamp. Make sure you have a drain bucket underneath. Loosen that up and just try to twist the hose back and forth. I'm just gonna use a pry bar just to pry it out a little. You can use a straight-blade screwdriver. Just going back and forth. There we go.

And one thing I forgot to mention, make sure you do this while the engine's cool. You don't want to do this with hot coolant.

And just slide this off, and there we go.

Use some hose clamp pliers to take this hose clamp off, and twist the hose, slide the hose off. Do the same to this one. Slide that down. Now just take a pick to just try to get underneath it and pry that off.

Now disconnect this hose. And twist it and take it off. Some coolant may spill out. Not too much. And then there's a retainer right here that was holding that to the shroud. Just slide that out of the way.

Now we're gonna disconnect the transmission cooler lines. There's one here and one down there. Take this little plastic retainer off this little cap. And then they make special tools you can use to remove those clips, or you can just use a pick and just slide this in here, and remove that little clip just like that. Save that for later.

And just take that off. Slide it out. Now you're gonna do the same for the lower one.

Now disconnect the electrical connector for the fan. Just push down on the terminal on the tab. Same on this one.

And then the wiring harness right here, I'm just gonna use a pick. Just take off...open up the retainer that holds that and slide that harness out of the way.

Now take these two bolts out. There's one on this side, one on the other. Use a 13 millimeter socket. And grab the fan shroud and just slide it straight up.

Now take this bolt out and same on the other side. Use a 13 millimeter socket. Now just grab the radiator, slide it back, and just slide it up.

Now we're gonna install the radiator. If these feet came off of the old radiator or if they stayed in the crossmember, take those out. Put these in like this and just slide it back in place. That looks good.

And then these rubber grommets go in here. I just took the centerpiece out just to make this a little bit easier. Just try to press that down. Push that in like that and then take that piece, slide it in the center. Do the same for the other side.

Now take the bolts, get those started, and snug those down.

Now, this radiator has an oil cooler, which this vehicle doesn't have one, which it is okay, it's not gonna affect anything. Coolants not gonna come out of here. That's not gonna affect it. If you had a vehicle with an oil cooler, you'd wanna hook those up right now.

And slide the fan back in position. Just line it up. Has a tab over here and a tab on the other side. That looks good. And put the bolts back in and tighten them down.

Now plug in the electrical connector for the fan, lock it in place, reattach this harness clip, and plug in the other fan.

Now we can hook up these tranny cooler lines. Just slide those in. The new radiator already has those clips on the fittings. And slide this clip down. Do the same on the bottom one.

And hook up these hoses. Move the hose clamp. All right, that looks good.

Now put this hose on. Move the hose clamp.

Now hook up the upper radiator hose. Take this little cap off. Slide that over. Looks good.

Now take this cap off the lower radiator and put the hose back on. I'm gonna use my hose clamp tool. And yep, looks good. Put this wiring harness back in its spot.

And line the airbox back up. It's lined up. Just push it down. Lock it in place.

Connect the mass air flow sensor, lock it down.

And slide the snorkel in position over the throttle body and over the airbox. Tighten down the worm clamp. Just snug it down. Same with this one. And re-secure this bracket. This one's broken.

And take the engine cover and slide it over. Get it started and tighten it down.

Now hook the battery up, the negative cable, and snug it down.

Now you're ready to add the coolant. Take the cap off the reservoir. You're gonna put the appropriate coolant 50/50 mix. Once you get it up to the level where it's supposed to be, you're gonna want to start the vehicle with the heat on low and monitor the temp gauge while you're letting the vehicle run for about 10 minutes, and monitor the level of the coolant and adjust accordingly. After about 10 minutes, everything should be warmed up. You can shut the vehicle off. Let the coolant suck its way into the engine. Put the cap back on. Once it's cooled down, adjust accordingly, and then go test drive the vehicle.

Remove this cover. I'm going to use an 8-millimeter socket. Loosen that bolt up and slide the cover up. And loosen up this worm clamp. You can use 8-millimeter socket or a straight blade screwdriver. And the same with this one right here. Use a trim tool and just separate this retainer right there with that bracket. Now slide the snorkel off right there and pull it out. Just to gain more access, I'm going to pull this airbox off. Disconnect the mass airflow sensor. Grab the airbox, pull it straight up, then you can slide it out. There's two tabs and this holds it in. I'm just going to take the cap off the coolant reservoir. Set it aside. I'm going to take the bottom radiator hose off. I need to drain the coolant. There's no coolant drain on this radiator, so I'm going to use a hose clamp pliers that have the cable style. Remove that hose clamp. Make sure you have a drain bucket underneath. Squeeze that.

And just let that drain out. So that's drained out. So, I'm going to take this hose off. Some more is going to drain out a little bit. All right. That's pretty good. Just leave that hose off. I'm going to take these two bolts out up top. Use a 10-millimeter socket. And there's four push pins, two on this side and two on the other side. You can use a push pin removal tool or a trim tool. Just remove these. Now take this hose retainer off right here. Just use a trim tool. Slide that up. Slide this hose out right here. This should be good. Just move this hose out of your way. Slide this cover right out.

Now we're going to take off this upper radiator hose. Just use a hose clamp tool. Squeeze the hose clamp. Just twist it off. A little bit of coolant came out. Disconnect this hose, goes to the reservoir. Just use the hose clamp tool and try to twist the hose. And just use a pry bar or a pick. Just get behind the hose. Just pry it out a little bit. Just be careful. You don't want to break the radiator if you're reusing the radiator. Slide it off, just like that. Use some hose clamp pliers. Take this hose off. This hose goes to the throttle body. Slide the clamp off, and just twist it off. There we go. Set it aside. Just grab this lower fan shroud, just pick it up or just move it aside a little bit. If you really wanted to, you could take the fan off and then take that out of the way, but we're not going to do that. Just move it out of the way. And then we want to take these two transmission cooler lines off. There's a little cap right here. Pop this cap back. Now, if you were draining the coolant into a bucket, you might want to change and get a different bucket because you're going to have transmission fluid come out as well and you don't want that mixing with the coolant. And then with a pick, there's a little clip right here. You're going to have to find where the end of the clip is. And they make special tools for this that you can use, but if you don't have them, you can use a pick and just take this little clip off. And don't lose that because you might need to reuse it. And just grab the line and pull it out just like that. And then we'll do the same with this upper one. And I'm going to take these two bolts out on the top of the radiator. Use a 13-millimeter socket. And just slide the radiator out and up. There we go. Pull it up.

On the new radiator, we're going to install the fittings. Take a 19-millimeter wrench and snug these up. Now, I need to transfer over these bushings onto the new radiator. You can try to push the center out just like that. Should be able to get the rubber piece off. Put it on the new one, and slide this through just like that. Do the same with the other side. Now, sometimes these come off with the radiator. Just slide these off and then reinstall these into the car. Put these where they came out, whether they came out of there or there. Same on the other side, and just slide the radiator into position. Make sure the feet go into those little grommets that you just put in. That looks good. Take these two bolts. Get those started. And tighten these up. Put the transmission cooler lines back in place. Now those clips are already in on the new fittings. Just snap it into place. Make sure it's tight and put this cover over it. It just holds the clip in place. Just like that, and do the same with this one. And if there's some corrosion or rust on there, you want to scrape some of that off. There we go. And this lower fan shroud can be repositioned right there. Take the lower radiator hose. Get that lined up. And we can put that on from down below. Take the hose that comes off the throttle body and slide that in position. Use the hose clamp pliers. There we go. That looks good right there. And this upper hose, it goes to the coolant reservoir. And that's good. And you can hook the upper radiator hose up. If you wanted to put the fan shroud back on first, you could do that. That's good. All right. Now, reattach the lower radiator hose. Should be all the way on there [inaudible 00:08:30] on the clamp. Just make sure it's tight. Looks good.

All right. Now, take this fan shroud. Hold the hose out of the way. Line it up. Use some alignment pins right there on both sides. Put these push pins in, lock them down. Do the same on the other side. Put these bolts in. Get those lined up, and tighten these down. And line this retainer up and right there. Put that hose in that position. And slide the airbox back in position. What you want to do is slide this piece. That's going to go right here. It's going to slide there, and then push the two push pins straight down. Push down. It's good to go. Reconnect the mass airflow sensor. And put the snorkel back on. Line this up with the throttle body and the airbox. And tighten up the worm clamps. And line this bracket back up. Put the cover on, slide it in the back. Get the bolt started, snug it down. Now you want to fill up the coolant reservoir. Fill it up. I fill it up about an inch or two above where the fill line is before we start the vehicle. And start the vehicle with the cap off, and the level is going to adjust. It's probably going to suck some into the engine. And then after that, you're going to adjust accordingly. Let the vehicle run for about 10 minutes, monitoring the level. While you're letting it run, monitor the temperature gauge. Make sure it does not go over 210 degrees. If it does, then shut the vehicle off. Let it cool down. Top off the coolant, and try it again. Turn the heat on, put it on medium fan. Turn the heat all the way up to hot. Make sure you do feel some heat coming out of the vents, especially when the temperature starts getting up there. If you don't feel any heat, again, your coolant level is going to be too low. Shut the vehicle off, top off the coolant. And then after that, after the thermostat has opened up, when the hoses are nice and hot, shut the vehicle down, adjust accordingly, put the cap back on, and you should be good to go.