Video: Safety Concerns When Replacing Car Radiator

Radiator coolant is highly toxic. Learn why you should be careful when replacing a car radiator in this free auto repair video from a master mechanic.

Video Transcript

In this segment, we're going to cover safety and various issues involved in replacing a radiator. In the automotive radiator, the basic coolant that is used is antifreeze. That's what it is referred to and its main chemical is an ethanol glycols. This is an agents that is known to cause cancer to humans so we want to protect our skin from it and make sure we don't ingest any of it, eat or drink any of it. Also, a good note for you, when you drain this out in a pan, if you have pets around, for some reason to taste of it to animals, dogs and cats, is like candy. They'll drink it up as easily as it is available. It's highly toxic to them as well. So, after you drain it, make sure you get it in a jug and put it up if you've got any pets around because you don't want to leave it around they can get access to it because it is poison to them as well. The other thing we're going to be concerned with, on this particular vehicle, it's an automatic so we have a cooler built in to the radiator that cools the automatic transmission fluid. That too is an oil based protect that's known to cause cancer. We want to have protection for our skin there as well. Another issue is our basic hand tools we'll be using to remove the radiator so we want to have eye protection on and one other issue involving safety. In a lot of the newer cars today, they use an electronic cooling fan, and there's a caution right on the fan that says it may come on and start at any time. We're working on a cold engine here and if the system is working correctly, that shouldn't happen but if there's a bad relay or something in the system or we bump something, the fan could come on while we're attempting to remove it. We want to disconnect the battery prior to working on the vehicle. One last thing. We want to make sure the vehicle is cold. If it has been running for the last couple of hours, let it sit for at least two hours and wait for the engine to cold down. We don't want to be dealing with hot engine coolant and also when the system is hot its under extreme pressure. So, please watch our next segment and we'll cover tools needed for replacing a radiator.

Safety Concerns When Replacing Car Radiator

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