I broked my radiator...

D

DeathByBowtie

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Joined
Feb 5, 2007
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While screwing my fans onto my radiator, I used screws that were a little too long (I know, shame on me for not measuring properly :(), and wound up puncturing one of the tubes (and coming damned close on the others). So now I have a pretty nasty little leak in my radiator, and I'd really like to patch it if possible so I don't have to buy a whole new rad. I talked to my dad about it, and he suggested Liquid Metal or something, but I figured I'd hop on here and see what input could be gotten. I'll try just about anything, since pretty much any option will be cheaper than buying a new radiator.

(It's a CoolingWorks CoolRad-22T radiator, btw.)

Thanks in advance.
 
yikes, what length screw did you use? I've got the same rad

Is it just one hole that was punctured? If so, and the integrity of everything else looks fine, you could just get some sort of putty or a dap of epoxy and cover it from the outside. For something like this, I'd say to stay away from something you put into the radiator and run it through.
 
We used JB Weld to fix my buddy's rad when he punctured the tube with a wild drill accident.
 
JB-Weld, At your local Wal-Mart in the Automotive section. Clean the area of paint and sand it a little first.
 
I think the screws are 1 1/2". I'll check out that JB Weld stuff, thanks for the tip, althought I don't know if I'll be able to get sandpaper into the area where the hole is.

And the thought of a "wild drill accident" makes me chuckle, for some reason.

*EDIT* Yeah, the screws are 1 1/2", and the two fans I have are 25mm thick, so I had about a good half an inch sticking out past the fan and into the radiator. I'll be sure to get some shorter ones tomorrow...:p

Also, as a quick side note (and since I don't want to make a new thread), does anyone know what fans will be goodly quiet while not sacrificing CFM hugely? I'm going to be moving my computer into my room, so I don't want it to be WHRRRRRRRRRing all night while I'm trying to sleep, but I'd like to squeeze some decent overclocking out of it. I bought a Scythe S-Flex SFF21F, which was supposed to be really quiet while maintaining a good throughput, but it wound up being significantly louder than the CoolerMaster fan I already had.
 
DeathByBowtie said:
Also, as a quick side note (and since I don't want to make a new thread), does anyone know what fans will be goodly quiet while not sacrificing CFM hugely? I'm going to be moving my computer into my room, so I don't want it to be WHRRRRRRRRRing all night while I'm trying to sleep, but I'd like to squeeze some decent overclocking out of it. I bought a Scythe S-Flex SFF21F, which was supposed to be really quiet while maintaining a good throughput, but it wound up being significantly louder than the CoolerMaster fan I already had.
Click to expand...

Yate loon 120MM fans are the best to use, they are quiet and move alot of air, they can be found at Jab-Tech.com.
 
yate loons are good and quiet. For the top screws (I mounted the rad up top), I used 1.5" without issue. Then again, it ran through 25mm yates, a case panel, and a fan grill. Maybe I got really lucky; I wouldn't be surprised. Eitherway, I'll be more careful myself later on as well. Good luck man
 
Yep, JB-weld is the best. I did damage my thermochill Pa 120.2 and it was a tiny little hole. then i patch it with JB-weld, Never leaks again.
 
For silence, run your fans off of your motherboard headers(providing they can supply enough power), and use something like speedfan to control your fan speeds based on temp. My fans run at ~45% almost all the time. They spin up to 100% the odd time when I'm playing a game(but I'm usually wearing headphones so I don't care).
 
The 1200rpm Scythe fans are great. Not cheap, but very well made and the airflow:noise ratio is good. Not quite silent, but just enough whoosh to drown out hard disks which have a horrible high-pitched noise.
Personally I'm finding Sharkoon Silent Eagles, working in tandem push/pull, are great for low noise and good performance. Build quality is questionable, but they are deathly quiet and cheap too. Fans configured to pull air through the rad do make more noise, unless you use a shroud or some other means of putting a bit of distance between the blades and the rad. I didn't bother, as I don't want to hear my HDD's clicking!
 
JB Weld here also, to fix one of my MCR120 when I did the same thing you did. :eek: JB Qwik will also work, but I would suggest being patient as you'll get a more solid cure with the standard product. Just make sure you remove as much paint as possible around the puncture and only cover the hole - don't push any in or you risk blocking the flow completely.
 
I put a little JB Weld on it this afternoon, I'll check it out when I get home from work. *crosses fingers* Thanks for the advice on the fans, I just found the thread with fan comparisons, so I'll be poking around there.

One more question: I'm using worm drives on all my hoses, but I'm a little befuddled about where the best place to position the clamp is. Should I put it on the flared part of the barb, or behind that where it flattens out again?
 
DeathByBowtie said:
One more question: I'm using worm drives on all my hoses, but I'm a little befuddled about where the best place to position the clamp is. Should I put it on the flared part of the barb, or behind that where it flattens out again?
Click to expand...

This is only my first week in to watercooling but I'd suggest doing it behind so the clamp doesn't slip off.
 
Good news, the JB Weld seems to have worked :D I'm gonna try running the fans I have with a monitoring program for now and see how that works out. Thanks for everyone's input.
 
Just want to offer five words of advice before you slap your freshly repaired rad back on your system - "twenty four hour leak test".
 
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