How To Replace Radiator 1992-99 GMC K1500 (2024)

Now wearing your safety stuff, you're gonna wanna remove this radiator cap right here. Make sure it's not hot. We're gonna lift it up away from our face. Perfect. Let's spray the lines that lead into the radiator. There's two on the other side, do the same. Let's go ahead and use our forky tool. We're gonna remove this from the housing. It should come right off. We'll come up here. You can use a pocket screwdriver or whatever you need to for this. That's...so it's ready to come off. We'll set that right back there. Okay. At this point, you can see you have a 10-millimeter here. You have a 10-millimeter here, one up here, one in the center, and then the same on the other side. Remove all of those 10-millimeter mounting bolts.

Let's use our 15-millimeter. We're gonna remove the both of these, and then we're gonna loosen this one, and loosen the one on the other side. It looks like we don't have to loosen them. Even better. Now, once you've moved the skid plate, you can see where one of the bolts is there. And then if you were to look on the other side, it would be right behind the lines. We're gonna use a 10-millimeter to remove both those bolts. So I'll get it on there. There we are. You can do the same to this one.

Next, we're gonna take off the fan so we have more room to get this out of the way. I'll take my screwdriver. That's gonna hold the fan still for me. You can also use a pry bar, of course, which would make more sense. There it is. Do the same to all. Let's get this out of here. Now it's gonna be time to get the lines off of the passenger side of the radiator. Use an 18-millimeter wrench to hold this portion right here, and then your 13-millimeter to remove the line. There it is. Do the same to the lower. That off of there. Now I'm gonna remove these lines on this side with my 20-millimeter wrench.

Let's remove the last bolt for this bracket. And we'll do the same to the other side. Now take off the clamp for this hose up here. So now we can lift up the radiator and we can make it so the petcock, which is located right down along here on the left-hand side of the radiator, is gonna line up with the area where the coolant can go right down into our collection bucket. You wanna make sure you recycle all of it.

Open that right up. Make sure it's a controlled stream so it goes into the bucket.

Now it's time to get the radiator hose off of here. To do that, you'd wanna squeeze this clamp. And then move the clamp away from where the radiator is if possible. Do the same to the lower hose. There we go. Coolant's probably gonna come out of this. Yeah. A little bit. It's not bad. Let's grab onto this. Make sure that your lines are out of the hole there. There it is. So we've got our little adapters here. It's important to notice that there's no seal going along these threads right here and there is a seal inside there. Make sure that seal's in there. You're gonna need to use some of this white Teflon tape, or if you have the goo, you can use that as well. I'm just gonna wrap this around the threads just to make a nice seal. Just a couple of times. Do the same thing to the other one. Time to start it in. Same thing to the other one. Use your 19-millimeter wrench. Just make sure they're snug.

Let's get the new radiator down in here. Set it down nice and easy. Line up the mounting points down along the bottom. Perfect. Let's get this bracket back on here. Do the same to the other side. Snug that up. Do the same for this one. Double-check to make sure your petcock is completely closed. Nice. Let's get our lower hose back on. More coolant's probably gonna come out. Make sure you put the clamp back on. If your spring clamp feels like it's not super tight and it's not holding the hose tight, make sure you replace it with a new clamp. Nice. Let's get these trainee cooler lines back on here. All right. So we're gonna tighten up all of these lines. I'm gonna start with this one, and then I'll do this, and then over there. Now we'll do the same to this side. That lined up. The hose, get that ready. Line up your clamp with where you took it off. Let's give it a nice wiggle. Let's get this lower piece back in here. Time to get the fan back on here. I'm gonna start on all these nuts before I tighten any of them down. So let's start snugging these up. It's important to make sure that you go crisscross pattern, make a nice X, or a plus, or whatever you got to do, but go from one side to the opposite side, and snug them right up. Let's get this top cover on here. Slide it right down. Okay. That was pretty good.

I'm trying to line up my bolt holes here. Maybe. There it is. I'm starting all of these bolts down along here. Do this one, and this one, and then the same to the other side.

Let's get these upper bolts started in here. Snug them up. Let's get this clip back in. Push this back down along here. It should sit all in the groove. Make sure you latch it in so it's secure. Let's get this back on here. Make sure you clamp it down nice and tight. If you need to use pliers, feel free. Make sure you tighten up both these bolts under here that hold the plastic. That looks great. Next, we're gonna get this plate back on here.

Now it's gonna be time to fill the cooling system. To do that, I like to use a vacuum bleeder like this. It's gonna apply vacuum to the system. It's gonna go up and past the 25 here. That's negative pressure. Once it gets up to there, we're gonna make sure it holds. If it starts relieving pressure, then we know we have a leak. Looks pretty good. I'm gonna turn off the air. Now I'll let this sit. I wanna make sure it doesn't drop anywhere lower than that 25. If it starts dropping drastically, even into the red, that's very bad. We know we have a leak. Now that we've got our vacuum holding, let's go ahead and fill it up.

So now that I've finished filling it that way, I'm gonna grab one of those burping funnels. I'm gonna fill it up about halfway and then I'm gonna run the vehicle for a while. You wanna make sure that you have the heat on and you have the fan blowing. That's gonna open up the thermostat sooner and it's gonna circulate that coolant. Once that starts happening, you're gonna notice a couple more air bubbles coming out and the coolant going down inside the reservoir. Once that happens and it's fully done, you will, of course, take that off, make sure you close it up completely, and then, of course, empty out your coolant reservoir over there. Replace that with some nice clean coolant as well and then down the road you go. Something else you'd wanna do, of course, would be to check your transmission fluid once it's nice and warm. You wanna make sure that the level's perfect while you're on a nice level surface. And while you're at it, go ahead and check that oil level. Make sure that's topped off as well because, well, we lost a little bit of fluid from both of those when we did the radiator.

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1988 - 1995 Chevrolet C1500 Truck

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1988 - 1994 Chevrolet K2500 Truck

1988 - 1994 Chevrolet K3500 Truck

1988 - 1994 GMC C3500 Truck

1988 - 1995 GMC C2500 Truck

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1988 - 1995 GMC K1500 Truck

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1992 - 1995 Chevrolet Suburban K2500

1992 - 1995 GMC Suburban C2500

1991 - 1991 GMC C3500HD

1992 - 1995 Chevrolet Suburban C2500

1994 - 1995 Chevrolet C1500 Truck

1994 - 1995 Chevrolet Suburban C1500

1992 - 1995 GMC Suburban K2500

1994 - 1995 Chevrolet C2500 Truck

1991 - 1991 Chevrolet C3500HD

1994 - 1995 GMC C2500 Truck

1994 - 1995 GMC K1500 Truck

1994 - 1995 Chevrolet K2500 Truck

1994 - 1994 GMC C1500 Truck

1995 - 1995 GMC Suburban K1500

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1994 - 1995 GMC K2500 Truck

1995 - 1995 GMC Suburban C1500

1994 - 1995 Chevrolet K1500 Truck

1994 - 1995 Chevrolet Suburban K1500

1996 - 1997 GMC P3500

1988 - 1999 Chevrolet C2500 Truck

1988 - 1998 Chevrolet K1500 Truck

1988 - 1999 Chevrolet K3500 Truck

1988 - 1998 GMC C1500 Truck

1988 - 1999 GMC C2500 Truck

1988 - 1996 Chevrolet K2500 Truck

1988 - 1999 Chevrolet K2500 Truck

1988 - 1993 Chevrolet K3500 Truck

1992 - 1993 GMC Suburban C2500

1992 - 1993 GMC Suburban K2500

1988 - 1998 Chevrolet C1500 Truck

1992 - 1993 GMC Yukon

1992 - 1993 Chevrolet Suburban C2500

1992 - 1993 Chevrolet Suburban K2500

1994 - 1995 GMC Suburban C2500

1994 - 1995 GMC Suburban K2500

1995 - 1995 Chevrolet K2500 Truck

1994 - 1995 Chevrolet Suburban K2500

1991 - 1993 Chevrolet C2500 Truck

1991 - 1993 Chevrolet K2500 Truck

1991 - 1993 GMC C2500 Truck

1991 - 1993 GMC K2500 Truck

1994 - 1995 Chevrolet Suburban C2500

1992 - 1993 Chevrolet C3500 Truck

1992 - 1994 Chevrolet C3500 Truck

1988 - 1993 GMC C3500 Truck

1988 - 1999 GMC C3500 Truck

1988 - 1993 GMC K3500 Truck

1988 - 1999 GMC K3500 Truck

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How To Replace Radiator 1992-99 GMC K1500 (2024)
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