long story short hit mud hole and the rad is completely clogged with now dried mud, tried everything (water/air) and cant clear out any suggestions??? (rad is now out of truck)


me, my girlfriend and her brother decided to take out my quad to a local offroad spot where there were a bunch of people hitting some mud....so i decided hit a deep mud pit that no one made it throu. i made it no problem and tried a 2nd time.....well 2nd time snapped my axel then my boards for a ramp flew out and smashed my tail light then at night my battery died in the middle of the woods luckly some good ole boys were out there and 1st helped me out of the mud and then came and gave me a jump after my girlfriends brother took the quad and found them, then they followed me and got under my truck to help keep the drive shaft from slammin around....then heading home it starts to overheat, but i know all my fluids are good and water pump are fine...next day i wash it and hose out the rad (or what i thought was the rad, and again overheats...took it apart and found i was only clearing out the a/c rad which was huge...i looked at my actual rad and tried to hose it but nothing......ended up taking out the rad and it is %100 clogged with dry mud. used my hose on jet setting and got a little out, tried the air compressor but still light wont even shine through...

in 1 night I:
*snapped my front drive shaft (now need a new one)
*smashed out my tail light (need a new one)
*killed my battery (charged that one)
*overheated the truck having to stop every 5 minutes
*cause a huge muddy mess of the truck/engine bay (over 2 hours and alot of driveway cleaning to do)

 

Clogged radiators happens frequently on the 4-wheelers.

Take the radiator out and soak it in water & degreaser.
You've got to be gentle with the cooling fins, you don't want to bend them or pinch a vein.
Do not use a pressure washer at close range... a hose should be fine.

I takes a couple of cycles, but will get all the mud out eventually.

If you do not get the mud out... you will over heat.

The good news is its a inexpensive fix.... just time consuming.

Here's how we addressed this on the 4-wheelers.
We relo'd the rads up on the front... works like a charm... probably not much of an option for your truch though

 

old post but yeah what a pain,
i ended up taking the rad out completely and taking it to one of those 2.00 for 3min car wash places used their pressure washer and made a mess there but after $4.00 it was cleaned.....i need to invest in a pressure washer now...but now i just need to give up mechanics for a while, i kinked my trans line causing it to have a pin hole in it....ended up cutting that line and just using a fuel line with 2 clamps which works so far now.

 

relocate radiator/fans to the bed..lots of mudders do it

 

yeah its more of a daily driver and the quad fits perfectly in the bed right now....im just going to have to ivest in a pressure washer and maybe block the rad before going through a pit