Plastic Radiator Repair Question and Story (Medium Long)

[Christopher Ritchie]

Yesterday, I took off work to fix the brakes on my '88 5KSQ.  After 
replacing the master cylinder, I went under the car to bleed the brakes.  Lo 
and behold, the right rear underside of the car was dripping with brake 
fluid.  It turned out that I had burst the right rear rubber flexible brake 
line to the caliper.  So that's what the problem was.  I thought it was a 
master cylinder because the pedal only went to the floor after continuous 
pressure, but the fluid level in the reservoir never went down.

I live 3 miles from Clair Audi.  A quick call there revealed that they had 1 
left in stock.  What luck!  I carefully drove up there.  It was very 
crowded, and I ended up parking out front by the new cars.  When I came out, 
I noticed a very large orange wet spot beneath the front of the car and 
steam coming out the front.  Damn.  The top radiator plastic outlet for the 
hose had broken.  About 1 inch was left on the radiator.  It took all of 2 
minutes to loosen the clamp; dig out the piece stuck in the hose; jam the 
hose back on the stub up tight; position the clamp just back from the end of 
the hose; tighten the clamp; and, be on my way.

Last weekend I drove from Boston to New York City with a leaky brake hose 
and a fragile radiator.  On the way home I stopped in Rhode Island to pick 
up some stuff I bought on Ebay.  The guy also had an '86 5K parts car.  In 
addition to the other stuff, I bought the radiator (and the fan, and the 
overflow tank, and the A/C condenser, and the sensors attached to all this). 
  I didn't know I needed it, and only bought it because it was cheap.  I 
finally looked at it when I got home.  It is metal.

I guess I should be grateful that the car breaks when and where it does.  
But I am getting sick of constantly working on the thing.

All this leads to a question.  Isn't there a fix for broken radiator 
outlets?  Something like epoxying a neck in the remaining stub?  Anybody 
ever do this?  Anybody ever ride around for any length of time with the hose 
attached only to a 1 inch neck.  (I want to get the radiator pressure tested 
before I go to all the trouble of replacing it.)
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