Kill me now. Radiator help!

[im4gine3]

In all my years of watercooling i have only ever stabbed a fin into a radiator once, and that was during the Thermochil days.

Just received a HWLabs GTX420 radiator no less than 1hour ago and i've managed to poke a hole in one when my hand slipped.

Water doesn't seem to leak when i tested, but then i used a leak tester and can confirm it is leaking air. The leak is not audible unless you stick you ear to the hole.

Any potential fix for this.. albeit the radiator ain't cheap!

Picture below.. i want to cry so bad!

Maybe this will help but theres so man ydifferent types, any particular one to try

OriginalEpAdh | JB-Weld

www.jbweld.co.uk

 

[im4gine3]

ill give it a trey later today.. and yeah it was with a screwdriver

 

[im4gine3]

filled with water and set the leak tester to 0.75 bar.. will see how quick/slow it decompresses.

IIRC, a loop will decompress slowly before stabalizing, but doing the same to a radiator, it never stabalises right, it just very slowly drops pressure

 

[im4gine3]

I honestly think its fine, if it holds water i wouldn't worry. It doesn't look like it's penetrated the tubing.

yeah i'm hoping so.. else thats £150 wasted

 

[im4gine3]

left it for a couple hours and its holding pressure with water inside...

I did use tweezers to straighten out the fins so that may have helped somewhat.. crysis averted *fingers crossed*

 

[im4gine3]

Or any sort of tissue that looses shape/deforms with liquid contact.

Just to confirm, how long were you looking at for the leak test? I think with testers if it retains "green" pressure for more than 15m you are OK?

for about 2-3 hrs.. it depressurised slowly for the first 15-20min or so before it stabalized for the rest of the period

 

[im4gine3]

Fill it with water and run it with the pump until satisfied after wrapping it in that nasty and thin blue industrial tissue paper, you'll instantly see the smallest drop.

I'll give that a go..

I did try the washing up liquid method where you dabble the area with a qtip to spot any bubbles forming, but couldn't see anything... maybe this will produce any other results

 

[im4gine3]

There is one way to test this, fill it with water, attach your leak tester and pump air in. If water squirts out from that damaged area, then you know its buggered.

thats what i tried.. not sure if it was me trying to fix it with tweezers and what not, but can no longer hear a hiss when filled with water and .75bar of air inside.. but to be safe, will try the other methods tested

 

[im4gine3]

Are you sure the air leak was from there?

Won't the coolant become thinner as it warms up meaning and system ran pretty hard might make it leak? I have got plenty of bent fins on my radiators like and I doesn't seem like you hit the tubes from the pic.

yeah.. the hiss was more noticiable on the first tube (closest the side). I'll try getting a better macro picture of the area.. Pictures don't do justice i'm afraid

 

[im4gine3]

no blue paper but thin kitchen towel will do.. as long as i dab the area few times.

Trying to get a good shot with an iphone, magnifying glass and a torch is difficult!

 

[im4gine3]

think its safe to say i dodged a bullet. After testing various methods and using enough water to shower a school classroom-full, i can't see any noticable leaks.

Maybe i'll become a millionaire one day making an idiot proof radiator protector