Valeo Raditor, What's inside? ?

[merc85]

Most of you have seen my thread where i have changed the Radiator on my 2004 e55.

It was out of precaution, My car wasn't in the Valeo Date/chassis range of failure but as ive said before these 211's are getting on and that doesn't mean they cant fail at some point, so i changed it out anyway.

I didn't/haven't put this in my thread section as there's other members doing wonderful things to there cars so im giving my thread a break for abit, hence im posting this here.

After all i've read about the Valeo issue ive never ever seen inside a Valeo Radiator. "until now"

I crudely separated the end tanks of the rad to have a look and check to see if my cooler was leaking as id had a gearbox issue anyway. Well after doing this and filling the cooler full of water letting it sit a week im pleased to say nothing has leaked! I even put pressure through to check for high line cracks which there wasn't any Phew!! lol. Here is what they look like inside. It's a tiny cooler but it must do summit lol.

And inside

So there you have it, Just thought some may find this interesting.

 

[pmcgsmurf]

Interesting Gav

I've not paid much attention to the rad/cooler setup on the W211.

So is the cooler for the auto box enclosed in the radiator and when plumbing in the radiator you also have to do the connections for the cooler?
So something in there must break causing the coolant to get mixed in with the ATF.

 

[E55BOF]

ISTR the problem was the o-rings where the cooler connections pass through the water jacket, or at least I've seen that somewhere; probably on here, in fact.

 

[Dutchbenz]

It's not only the autobox cooler but also the autobox heater.
It sees to it that the autobox oil is rapidly at operating temperature.
Tony.

 

[Will]

It's not only the autobox cooler but also the autobox heater.
It sees to it that the autobox oil is rapidly at operating temperature.
Tony.

Yes I was going to mention that, the gearbox probably only gets heat from friction, conducted heat from being bolted to the engine and some radiated heat from the exhaust otherwise. The engine coolant warms up pretty rapidly so this is more of a heat exchanger - to warm up the ATF and balance out the operating temperature of the box rather than just a cooler

Interesting post Gav, it looks quite clean inside