I'm no radiator or metals expert, but the current Denso offering, made in Taiwan and available over the Toyota parts counter seems to be of a very similar quality to the original. The transmission fittings were handled a little differently, but it plugs right in and still has the handy metal hangars built in so it will stay put on its own until you can get the bolts started. EZ one man job. The biggest difference I can see is that there are about 67 core tubes in the original rad, and around 55 in the current offering.

Here are some comparison shots, and I also took my sawzall to the old rad for fun. I had always assumed the strawberry milkshake syndrome was a failure of the plastics, but obviously not.

I wonder if the transmission core tubes themselves developing holes or is the leak developing where the in/out fittings connect in to the tubes? I wonder if this is why they changed how those fittings bolt in because you can see it's an entirely different way they attached it. I wish I would have put a big wrench to those fittings before chucking it in the dumpster.

Overthinking for sure, but just curious.

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Cool, I love teardowns! Thanks for sharing. That is very interesting about the construction of the ATF passage. Great info!

One disappointing thing is the design of the drain on new Denso units. Seems to always make a mess unless you’re very careful.

You can uncrimp the tank from the bottom of the core to see things a bit more clearly:



The pink milkshake happens from internal corrosion, likely from lack of changing the coolant sufficiently. That pic above is my radiator from a few years back that was original with like 270k miles on it...

-Charlie

Thanks PD, I knew this was probably well covered ground. I like your surgical look better than my caveman attempt.

it would be interesting to see one that had gone milkshake

yes, as that would give a definite indication on where and how failure occurs