my new favorite tool of choice for radiators

you guys know ive used everything from a concrete saw, sawsall, hackzall,grinder, ive even yanked them out with an excavator, anyway for the last dozen or so ive just used a cheap pair of bolt cutters i got from harbor freight years ago, i can just pop the top hose where the plastic is with the head of the bolt cutter, cut whateever brackets are there, put the handles together and piledrive the boltcutters down onto the fan shroud and bust it up, cut the lines, then wedge the boltcutters in between the radiator and the frame and pry with the bolt cutters like a prybar, it will come up 2 to 4 inches each time, when you can reach the bottom hose just cut the clamp or pry it off, probably takes about two minutes to do the whole process, pretty good considering the first one i took out last fall with wrenches took at least20 or 30 minutes.

nice stack of radiators there cory

thanks bear, its the most we ever had theres a couple more over by the storage container plus i still have the one from teh crawler loader, we used to have radiator and aluminum wheel days and do breakdowns, when we get around to it we will have a pretty nice payday

Most of the crowd I spend my time with are derby guys, so radiators are a precious commodity in my circle, and for myself. I take the time to undo them right, unless they are already junk. But when taking them out just for the scrap....whatever method will be the most time effective.....use it.

some of them are good im sure, i absolutly hate trying to sell parts cars to for that matter, its a really big hassle for a one or two man operation because we are on the go all the time, we have gotten a few contacts since we have been doing this on people that want certain items and we give a call when we think we have something they want

I agree Cory we will not sell parts, too much hassle. We do the same thing try and schedule a rainy day to clean rads and wheels! Love it when the 24' goose goes out loaded end to end with rads. We dont keep aluminums anymore though. after a bit of time study it was costing us more to pull and clean them than we were making. Still do a load of copper and copper aluminum a month.

Check you local yard.

Did u clean it? Clean cu/al ears bout $1.20 - $1.30

I have a suggestion too for when you go to clean them.. If you are cleaning the rads with plastic tanks, buy a pair of tile pliers. They are like a wire cutter except they have a sideways jaw with a small gap in between. We used to use a screw driver, or a hatchet, or a pair of vise-grips with a notch ground into them but the tile pliers are the quickest and easiest we have found. Pry one both ends and one side free then bend the other way and the tank pops right off, you don't need to go all the way around.

We use a vise for the plastic tanks on the side, tighten the vice on the plastic with the vise just touching the metal, pull back, push forward, after a couple times it pops off flip to the other side repeat

Thanks cory I will have to remember the vise idea and give it a go. We sometimes clean 400 at a time lol.