After watching my temp go up to 213F degrees in the summer heat in 2009, I decided something needed to be done with my cooling system. Even though I no longer had to worry about vapor locking with the TBI system installed, I was still concerned about the motor running that hot.

If it went up to 213F while driving around town, who knows where it would end up while actually out on the trail. Time for action!

SlushPuppy came with a 3 row radiator and had done pretty well. But time had taken its toll and the cooling efficiency just wasn’t there anymore.

My choices:

I could replace it with another 3 row radiator from the local parts store for $200. But that one was barely adequate for driving around town.

I could buy an aluminum crossflow 2 row radiator for $355 shipped to my door, but it would not use the stock fan shroud.

I could buy a regular downflow aluminum 3 row radiator off ebay for $200 shipped to my door.

After hearing some feedback from other FSJ owners who had purchased the ebay radiator, I ordered one from oscarsrads on ebay. They had better feedback than RadiatorDealz. I placed my order and paid for it and waited. Others had said that they got theirs within a week of ordering.

Sure enough, exactly 7 days later, I found a big white box sitting outside my house! Like a lion, I dragged my prey into the kitchen to take a closer look...

At first, I was worried about the HUGE dent in the side of the box!!!  Uh oh!!!

As it turned out, the dent was on the side of the box closest to the bottom in this photo. However, as you can see, packaging wasn’t exactly stellar. But this may be on purpose, because if there WAS more packaging, that dent in the front may have caused packaging to impact the front of the radiator. Who knows... One of the side flanges was slightly bent from bouncing around (left to right in the above photo) but some careful bending of the flange took care of that problem. Also note that the overflow port is on the wrong side of the filler neck. That is nothing that an extra long rubber line can’t fix.

It appears to be nicely constructed. There are some extra corners built into the top and bottom tanks, evidently designed to clearance another part of the truck.

FRONT VIEW (this side faces front of vehicle)

BACK VIEW (this side faces the engine)

So far, so good. I have heard that the transmission cooler line fittings are a different size than the OEM fittings, so I brought the whole radiator to the hardware store to get new fittings and hose barb adapters.

It turns out that the transmission lines use 1/4” NPT threads. I was able to get a 3/8” hose barb fitting with a 1/4” NPT thread.

I replaced the plastic drain plug with a 12mm 1.25mm pitch oil plug purchased from the local parts store.

I tried to use my old radiator cap, but it didn’t seal well against the new radiator neck, so I bought a new one which works fine.

So far, so good. But strangely enough, at the end of July it was not really super hot to test out the total cooling capacity.

Once August hit, I got some good warm weather! With the new radiator, it ran cooler, but would still get a little too warm coming off the highway and it would never cool down afterwards.

So I looked into replacing the fan clutch with a “Severe Duty” fan clutch.

There are several fan clutches available for the FSJs.

You can get a non-thermal clutch, aka Standard Duty, or a thermal clutch, aka Heavy Duty. The thermal clutch has a bi-metallic spring on the front of it.

You can also get a Severe Duty clutch, but it is not listed as compatible with an FSJ. This clutch is Hayden P/N 2797. I found that the Hayden branded version does not have the correct bolt circle diameter to work with an OEM water pump. But an Imperial brand clutch DOES. It has 4 slots to allow different bolt circles, thus it will work with the OEM water pump.

This is what it looks like:

top tank, front side facing viewer

bottom tank, back side facing camera.

Note that it says HAYDEN AUTOMOTIVE on the box and the smaller part number is also 2797!

AS OF 2013, this model no longer has slotted holes!

The front has the familiar bi-metallic spring of the Heavy Duty clutch, but the fins are much deeper. As you can see, the back part of the fan clutch has 4 slots instead of holes to allow for different bolt circles.

This clutch is also much stiffer to turn. When engaged, it is supposed to turn much faster than a Heavy or Standard Duty fan clutch.

The fan clutch is a little thicker than the Heavy Duty fan clutch, so you must make sure that you have enough clearance between the radiator and the clutch. The installation instructions say to have no less than 3/4” between the radiator and the clutch.

With this ebay radiator, I have 3/4” clearance. It’s a tight fit, but it works.

CONCLUSION:

With the combination of the ebay radiator, a high flow 195F thermostat and the Severe Duty fan clutch, my temps are solid and rarely stray about 200 degrees. If it is running a little warm, sitting at idle allows it to cool back down nicely.