How the hell do you do it???

I'm getting ready to strip a wreck, and the radiator is broken. I have another that I'm going to put in just to drive the car around the block and make sure there was no damage to the motor or trans before pulling them.

I crawled under it today and the fans are broken off the radiator mounts and hanging down by miscellaneous surrounding stuff. I'm thinking it looks easier to take the fans out the bottom and then you'd have room to get to the factory spring clamps on the hoses.

But then I don't see how to get the radiator out without pulling the condensor too. This is a load of work just to drive the car around the block, since it was my car and I know it ran fine before the wreck. I'm just worried that it ran without coolant and/or upside down since the car came to rest upside down. If it had been me in the wreck I would have shut it off immediately, but my Wife was driving it so it's likely she tried to flip the car back over by turning hard to the right. So it's not a stretch to think the car ran upside down for several minutes.

Any advice on pulling the radiator, what to pull first, the radiator, the condensor, or the cooling fans?

 

pull the fans, pull the plastic on top of the rad, disconnect hoses, remove rad from the top

 

The radiator and condensor have some plastic tabs on the side that "nest" the 2 together. The radiator can be pulled out the top, just look for these tabs to see which way to separate.

 

Once you unlock the condenser from the radiator, the radiator will come out by itself.

 

you will have to lift up an inch or so on the condensor then push back on the radiator and set the condenser back in place, then the rad should lift right out

 

Thanks Guys, I see the tabs now.