What's cracking our upper radiator support?

[RenoHuskerDu]

I welded this up when we did a bunch of work on this 89 Bricky, a couple years ago perhaps. It's very thin and I wound up using pulse to do it.

Now my ugly welds are holding, but it's cracked right next to the repair.

Has anybody else fought cracking upper radiator support?

[FuzzFace2]

Seeing it is in the center where the hood latch is some of the things I would check is the latch assy.
It is bolted to a bracket that runs to the bottom of the support and should be bolted there, is it tight?

Next would be the hood bumpers.
On the 80 - 86 trucks they have bumpers that adjust in each front corner.
Do they hit the hood? If not the hood can be moving up & down when driving and you not see this and it would be pulling up & down on the latch and flexing that center part.
Also if this adjustable bumpers are up to high can be pulling up on that center part and road vibration would cause that.

IIRC there are also rubber "rub pads" a little farther back on the fenders to keep the hood from flexing in the center and moving left & right. Are they hitting the hood?

That is all I could think of at this time and not seeing it in person.
Oh if you are going to weld it again I would weld it like you did then grind it smooth and then weld sheet metal across the front & top and maybe the back side to reinforce that area, like a fish plate deal.
Dave ----

[ArdWrknTrk]

How are the rubber bushings where the radiator support bolts to the frame ears?


I saw a lot of tearing in my brick house radiator support.

But I don't have the stepped down diesel type core support
Are you sure it's just those two upper corners??

[RenoHuskerDu]

We need to check those rubber bushings, good tip.  Furd no longer offers the rubber ones, so we put bright red elastomer cab bushings on the last Brick we did, and also put some on an Aeronose this weekend.

We did find some tearing on the lower area, passenger side. A blowout damaged the fender liner and may have also damaged the lower rad support.

But the cracks that I welded up were there when we bought the truck, and the blowout was this year...so can't be the cause of the new cracks up top.

We'll look it over more closely tomorrow

[ArdWrknTrk]

My rad support wasn't torn all the way around like yours but both lower corners were bad as well as a whole bunch of spot welds ripped/torn.

I replaced mine and did some premptive gusseting to the new one.
But as you know the diesel supports are unobtainable.

I wish I had some better advice.

[mat in tn]

it seems to me that there is a lacking of hood latch support. whether there is a brace missing or loose, i dont know . but the areas where the tearing is occurring seems to be stressed from the center up/out

[myrl883]

It's a very common failure on diesels. I think the biggest cause is bad mounts, as previously mentioned.