93 525i radiator problem

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Milo - 18 Aug 2006 04:33 GMT

While driving to the store today, I noticed steam coming from under my hood.
I looked at the temp gage and everything seemed normal. When I parked at the
store I popped the hood and almost fell over from what I saw! The upper
inlet pipe to the radiator had broken off and the radiator hose was just
hanging there dumping antifreeze everywhere.

I managed to copple things back together and limp home, with several stops
to add water to a now very hot radiator.

Has anyone encountered this problem and is there a fix?
The upper portion of the radiator is some tpye of plastic and broke off very
clean. Is there an adhesive on the market that can bond the pipe back to the
radiator and survive in the hostile environment of cool/heat vibration?

If not, what are my options of acquiring a replacement radiator.

The car has 140K miles and still runs very well although the bottom of the
doors are rusting.

Milo

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Floyd Rogers - 18 Aug 2006 05:20 GMT

> While driving to the store today, I noticed steam coming from under my
> hood. I looked at the temp gage and everything seemed normal. When I
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> to the radiator and survive in the hostile environment of cool/heat
> vibration?

This is an extremely common problem. The guy writing the tech column
for Roundel is of the opinion that radiators should be replaced every
80-100K
miles because they WILL break.

Get a new one. They're relatively cheap. Do not try to repair it.
Replace the water pump, thermostat and hoses while you're at it.

FloydR

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Fred W - 18 Aug 2006 14:22 GMT

> While driving to the store today, I noticed steam coming from under my hood.
> I looked at the temp gage and everything seemed normal. When I parked at the
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Milo

Milo,

This is (unfortunately) a rather common failure mode for radiators in
BMWs. The plastic hose pipes become brittle with age and temperature
and break off as yours did. About all you can do is replace the entire
radiator.

There are some aftermarket manufacturers that assemble the radiators
with end tanks (inclusing the hose pipes) made from aluminum. They are
about twice as expensive, but should last more than twice as long. I'm
not sure if they make them for E34's though. So it depends on how long
you intend to keep the car as to wehether it is worth the added cost.

Signature

-Fred W

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Richard Sexton - 18 Aug 2006 18:15 GMT

>This is (unfortunately) a rather common failure mode for radiators in
>BMWs.

Uh, it's not just BMW radiators that do that. For every 10 people that try
to reattach the neck one suceeds. Mercifully new rads aren't expensive.

Signature

Need Mercedes parts? http://parts.mbz.org
Richard Sexton | Mercedes stuff: http://mbz.org
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Home pages: http://rs79.vrx.net
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | http://aquaria.net http://killi.net

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frischmoutt - 18 Aug 2006 17:46 GMT

It happened to me last year on my 1992 E30, 198000 km on it.
I (hardly) negotiated a radiator in a junky yard: 50 Euros.
Don't try to repair. It's not worth it.
Bleed carefully the circuit when it's done.

> While driving to the store today, I noticed steam coming from under my hood.
> I looked at the temp gage and everything seemed normal. When I parked at the
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Milo

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