Once the weather warmed up, I was headed home one day and glanced down to see my temp gauge nearly pegged. After getting the truck home, I suspected the water pump and found a nifty tip online for checking the amount of coolant flow (couldn't see flow in the radiator neck). Run your heater hose return through a clear plastic bottle so that you can see how much coolant is moving. Mine was moving great, so I thought maybe the radiator was plugged. I removed the fan, the shroud, the battery and battery tray, etc., and was about to lift out the radiator when... I noticed something funny in between the radiator and the condenser. I pulled it out, and it was a large piece of sheet metal, in front of the radiator! Obviously this was my problem, but as long as I had the radiator loose, I took it to Beaverton Radiator for a flow test. After hearing my story the guy there thought I was nuts for even bringing the radiator in, and it flow tested just fine. I asked the PO what the sheet metal was for, he said it was to get the motor warmed up faster in cold weather. Since I bought the truck in cold weather, the sheet metal was still there.
While everything was apart I noticed a bit of rust below the battery tray on the inner fender, so I cleaned things up, painted the rust with POR15, and painted as much as I could with POR15 Blackcote. My bro-in-law also got me a deal on an Optima blue top, so that when in as well. I really didn't like the look of the stock radiator catch can mounted high on the passenger inner fender, so I replaced it with an aluminum can mounted on the core support.
