Radiator drain won't drain

[Foothill Rancher]

More problems with the 97, brought it back to dealer for trans flush and while there decided to get a couple of fittings for the radiator, the fittings that connect the trans oil cooler to the radiator has one fitting thats a quick disconnect thats plastic, the bottom one is metal, when the truck was new there was a recall and the bottom hose was changed over to metal due to the heat was melting the disconnect,coming apart and spraying fluid all over, when I changed the radiator out I was able to save both fittings which took about 3 hours. Issue is I wanted a couple of spares just in case the plastic went bad, parts guy said can't buy just the coupling that they came with the hose, then when he looked those up said you can't just buy the hose, it's shows in the part book but no number to order by, he said that it looks like they now have to order the whole oil cooler and it comes as a unit but thinks that maybe the fittings in the radiator have to be changed out and it makes them a screw on connection. I went from what I figured was a couple of bucks to 380.00 in a matter of minutes plus what looks like not to fun of a job. There must be someone else out there thats run into this issue and would like to how they handled this. This doesn't seem right to me that you can't buy just a hose or fitting and seems like a way to make a little more money by making you buy a whole assembly instead of a small part. I'm going to call other dealerships but sure I'll get the same answer.

 

[Egon]

I seem to recall reading somewhere where fellows have fabbed up their own fittings and hoses for quite a bit less dollars than the company version. I had the the oil cooler lines on mine replaced due to heat failure. The cost was rather exorbitant in my opinion.

On the fuel system I fabbed up my own lines for a few bucks rather than pay what the company wanted for replacement lines.

The recall was for a gas truck. It did not apply to the Diesels.