Need to fix a hole in my radiator

[AirSpeed]

I have a small leak in my rad I'm going to fix today, am I going to lose a lot of trans fluid when I disconnect the cooling lines? Any tips on soldering the hole up?
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[truckster]

There's no pressure in the trans cooler lines when the engine is off, so you won't lose much ATF. Make sure the area you're planning to solder is clean - no paint, grease, oil, dirt, etc. Pinch the hole closed if it's bigger than a pinprick, and use flux.

[AirSpeed]

Originally Posted by truckster

There's no pressure in the trans cooler lines when the engine is off, so you won't lose much ATF. Make sure the area you're planning to solder is clean - no paint, grease, oil, dirt, etc. Pinch the hole closed if it's bigger than a pinprick, and use flux.

Thanks! Got it fixed, turned out to be the upper hose tube, it was leaking all the way around. Looks like someone else tried to fix it before, poorly!
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[Mister-B]

How did you end up fixing it?
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[AirSpeed]

Originally Posted by Mister-B

How did you end up fixing it?
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I took it out of the truck, plugged the lower hose (left it on when I pulled the rad) then connected a short piece of tubing to my compressor and the other end to the drain petcock, gave it a little air, about a 1/2 psi and sprayed some soapy water on the area I thought was leaking, nothing there so I spayed around until I got bubbles. I heated up the crapy solder job from the PO and scrubbed it away with a wire brush, then filled the area with flux and used some lead solder (got that from gramps about thirty years ago!) . I just heated the area until the solder would melt when I touched it to the the tank. Worked well and no more leak! I've been wanting to fix it all winter but its been cold here until today. I had some stop leak crap in it (garbage only lasted a couple days) and just hated the thought of that garbage plugging up my heater core, I think I got lucky though, I flushed it out and the water seemed to flow through no problem.
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