4WHEELOFFROAD.COM 4-WHEEL & OFF-ROADNOVEMBER 2019 49
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Redferd came to us with what was clearly a
rebuilt factory-style bronze/brass radiator.
While the outside looked good and lacked any
noticeable leaks, the hard water of the South-
west can easily plug up the tubes inside any
radiator. We suspect that was an issue because
Redferd had approached overheating once or
twice on road trips and trail adventures. Thus
far, no major damage was done; we just had to
sit and wait while Redferd cooled off on the side
of the road or trail gurgling and burbling.2
Redferd also had what we are betting is either
a repurposed factory transmission cooler
from another application or possibly a factory
original Ford F-250 transmission cooler. Either
way, this thing has seen some action. Although it
still worked, clearly the mashed fins aren’t help-
ing cool the transmission fluid as much as fresh
fins would. And as you may know, heat is the
main cause of death in automatic transmission
land. We have other plans for a remotely mount-
ed Flex-a - lite unit w ith an integrated fan to keep
our C6 nice and cool, come what may.3
With the old parts out of the way, we laid out
an ogled over the new parts from Flex-a-lite.
These new radiators continue to ride on the cut-
ting edge of cooling technology with extrudedaluminum tubes that promote heat rejection
(cooling your engine’s coolant). Also shown is
one of the Flex-a-lite Remote Mount Stacked
Plate fluid coolers with^3 ⁄ 8 -inch hose barb
fittings (PN 60002, 9.64x11x3.250 inches) and
a Flex-a-lite Stacked Plate fluid cooler with(^3) ⁄ 8 -inch hose barb fittings (PN 400117,
6x11x0.750 inches). We’ll use the remote-
mounted unit with the fan for the transmission
and the smaller stacked plate cooler for the
Ford’s power steering system.
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Installation of the new radiator was comi-
cally easy. The new unit with integrated
fans simply drops behind the radiator core
support and is held in place with four factory
bolts through the factory mounting points. The
extruded tube design is reportedly very strong,
and the internal passage volume increases the
contact area between the coolant and alumi-
num tubes (bottom, left). The extruded tubes
also provide a flat, optimum surface on which to
braze the cooling fins, cooling fins that have lou-
ver s punched in them to direct air flow (bottom ,
right). This increase of contact and heat transfer
from coolant to tube, tube to fin, and fin to air
gives the Flex-a-lite Extruded Tube Core Radia-
tors significantly better cooling capability than
is possible w ith old -st y le tube cores.
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