I think I gotta PROBLEM!

[vee93]

Sooooo, I had the Vette on a lift the other day and noticed :eek to my horror, that 2 of the air box screws are sticking into the fins of the radiator!!! Now how in the he## did that happened!?!!!

What?
1) Wrong size screws?
2) Body shop that did front end repair did what wrong? (Although I must take half the blame since they'd left one of the screws off -[along with ALL of my underhood decals!]- so I replaced missing items. I never would've known if the car hadn't been on a lift and I was just looking around. It's not leaking at all, but I fear that day will come when I hit that "last straw" bump in the road-then big coolant leakage problems. I want to be proactive here, so...

What are my options here folks? ;help
*New radiator?
*Is there a patch repair for this?
*Do I take Vette to dealer or radiator shop?

All and any input is of course greatly appreciated.

 

[69MyWay]

can you get some good quality pictures and post them so we can help decide how serious this is?

 

[warren s]

If maybe the screws are only sticking into the fins and didnt touch a tube you can remove them and put in shorter screws.

 

[vee93]

*69-I will try and get pics as soon as I can. Seeing as how I'm a professional photographer, you'd think I'd done this already.

*Warren-the middle screw seems to have made a nice, round little hole about the size of a pencil eraser, but I can't tell as of yet how deep it is. The screw on the left (same side as coolant reservoir) seems to have only bent the fins.

Updates to come. Thanks for y'alls feedback.

 

[Vette_Newb]

Ouch, I think that if you had a shop do repair work and they returned the car that way you should confront them and demand a new radiator. At some point that is gonna be a problem.

I would be horrified to know that a reputable shop did that to my vette....

 

[3sacrwd]

Since you have to remove the radiator anyway, you may as well clean the gunk from the front area. Guaranteed to drop 5-20 degrees off your high antifreeze temp. Good luck.