That explains where the problem is and makes more sense. So is it a melted hole or like somenthing hit it?

 

It looks like a melted hole... even when u look through the tee... the ends look all wraped... like its been heated up a few times (which it has 5x) Do u think the replacment of this piece will solve my problem or this peice failing is due to another issue?? I am so lost at this point.

 

I had a car once that constantly lost fluid but never indicated a problem on a pressure test of the system. The mechanic finally decided to heat the engine to operating temps and pressure test it. sure enough after things had heated up the system lost pressure. The problem was the head gasket only leaking after the head was warm.

As for a piece that small causing the radiator to be clogged, I would doubt it. It might clog a few tubes but there are a lot of tubes in a radiator.

 

Whats the SI procedure? LT1's were a real pain in the butt, and even LS1's require a fair amount of burping. Sometimes I wonder if these modern "we reinvented the wheel" cooling systems are really better than the old fashioned kind with a simple overflow tank and you could look in the radiator and see if coolant was flowing.

 

An old trick I learned on a Lotus is to keep the filler neck the highest part of the cooling system to bleed the air out.

I still use this on my Fiero. I fill it from the engine till the radiator is full and the back fill till the neck on the engine is full. While doing this I keep the rear of the car jacked up. The air comes out very easy.

 

well the lates update is that the dealer contacted me today... they informed me that the think thet figuared it out. The service manager stated that when the other dealer installed the new motor, they did a coolant flush on the entire cooling system. Apparently the dealer that did the flush didnt completly flush all the acid and the acid has been eating away at the plastic componets in the cooling system. The dealer said they pulled the radiator off today to look for any obstructions and found a " toothpaste type material" in the radiator. They are assuming its plastic that made contact with the acid. Does this sound correct to anyone? Would this acid effect anything else in the cooling system? How about the head gasket, wouldnt it start eating through it also? I'm so confused at this point... what other things should I be worried about if the "acid" was indeed the cause? Also they are replacing the radiator, then they will be taking it on a few runs of 15 - 20 miles to see if the problem persists..

 

Even if they "fixed" it, I don't know if I'd trust it to last forever....

 

I remember 15 years or so someone made a acid base flushing chemical, you had to use a nutralizer when the flushing was complete so as not to damage other part with the chemical residue but I was under the impresion that per the epa they were no longer made of in use I may be wrong need to check on this. anyone else hear of that?

 

If the " acid has been eating away at the plastic componets " then why don't it eat through the plastic bottle it came in? let's keep thinking

 

Actually why does it have to be in a plastic bottle?? I'm sure ChevyMgr can jump in here but I remember that there was an issue for awhile with the antifreeze used in the 4.3 engine if they didn't have the system totally bled and the cure was a very complicated cleaning process using an acid system.