[Scooter-Man]

Group - Here's a crack that developed on my 2000 ES with 140,000 miles. The reason for showing this might be a minor correlation between the cracked radiator tanks on the passenger side and the crack shown below.

I bought an aftermarket Dorman tank, lifetime warranty from the local auto parts store. This one store had qty 3 in stock... Seems to be a high quantity for this item.

The temp gauge was jumping up and down and when I opened the hood, it was pretty easy to find this:

[01TrepSE]

mine cracked in the same spot

[Ronbo]

Obviously the results of a defective Fetzer valve!

[Scooter-Man]

Seems to me, MAX can't take the heat.

[Duds]

Geiger Technic must be proud.

[MrBigE]

LOL @ Doug.

Perhaps this is becoming another common cooling system failure for the LH? First the rad splits, get that fixed, next weakest link is the tank? I'll have to do an inspection on mine...

[300maximilien]

Robert (LUNAT1C) worked for Dorman for a short time and commented a few times that they had an issue with older tanks and redid them to try and eliminate this same problem. It is recommended to go either OEM or make sure the Dorman is new stock.

[Scooter-Man]

Funny you mentioned that, I'm having issues with this new Dorman tank. It keeps letting air in the system. Everymorning I the coolant noise through the heater core. I've bled the system and add water (if needed) on a daily basis, still getting air.

Last night I put my old radiator cap on the new tank and added worm style hose clamps.

I'll give it a day or so to see if that fix stops air from getting into the coolant system.

[CHollman82]

I noticed that the 02' that I just bought had the tank replaced as well...

[DrDodge]

I found a super nice OE tank at the yard,, snagged that puppy

[Scooter-Man]

After jerking around with 'swooshing' from the heater core and constantly bleeding the system and higher operating temps, I took the Dorman tank back to AZ for a replacement tank last night.

Took a whooping 5 minutes to fill and bleed the system and no more swooshing noise and steady cool operating temps when ambient temp is 95°F and A/C is running.

[Mister 300 M]

My cooltant recovery on my 300m cracked in the same place replaced with doorman it cracked in a few days replaced again no leaking now.

[Scooter-Man]

That second POS Dorman replacement tank also gave the 'swooshing' noise thru the heater core roughly 2 weeks later. I finally got time to hit the yard and got a factory coolant tank.

the POS Dorman tank went in the trash, down goes $60.00. Found a few factory tanks that were cracked in the yard.

SO - hoping this factory one solves the problem.

[hardwareguy]

Nobody is really sure which comes first, the coolant bottle leak or the cracked tank.

One theory is that air admittance due to a cracked tank or bad tank to filler neck seal (it's a 2 piece design with a gasket seal) causes a water hammer effect that cracks the tanks.

In my case, it was the filler neck seal that let go and it was such a small leak I never saw it until one very hot day out in the desert when I heard the leak and found that the noise stopped if I pressed on the filler neck at a certain point. A tiny speck of dried sodium silicate where the filler neck met the bottle indicated where the pinhole leak was. I mistook it for glue before I heard the noise!

I went through THREE radiators with that bottle....this rad is holding with the new bottle.

[paintballdude05]

I'm going to have to inspect my coolant bottle too. I've been going through a large amount of rads with no explanation. I know my rear t-belt cover to block seals are leaking, I've been planing to change those. But the coolant bottle has always had a bit of coolant residue on it which I attributed to overflow from filling, maybe that wasn't the issue....