Great minds think alike.

 

Finally got around to working on the truck this past weekend. As I mentioned I picked up a pressure tester from Autozone a couple weeks back. I put the tester on the radiator and pumped it up. Took a long time for it to build up even the slightest bit of pressure. I realized the radiator had no coolant in it (only air) and that's why the pressure wasn't building up. I filled the radiator with water and put the tester back on. Started building up pressure and I could see water leaking out from the lower radiator hose. I played around with the hose and clamp to see if it just came loose or if there was a hole in it somewhere. Tried to squeeze the hose clamp and it snapped. It was a spring clamp probably from the factory that rusted. Went and bought a new worm clamp from the parts store. I know those are considered inferior to the spring clamps but the store didn't have any of the latter in stock. Anyway, put the new clamp on, put some more water in the radiator, and started building up pressure again. This time, NO LEAKS!

Now that the leak was solved, I had to remove the water from the system in order to add proper coolant to it. I took the oppourtunity to do an entire flush of the system. Bought one of those Prestone cooling system cleaner bottles and added that in with the water. Went through the flush process and filled the radiator back up with coolant. Truck has been running much better since. The temp needle doesn't even reach halfway on the gauge anymore.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and insight!

 

It's not that it's just inferior. If the hose is going over a plastic/composite tube or neck, you should not use a worm clamp. This is because the material will expand and contract with the heat cycles and the spring clamps will adjust for that. The worm clamps don't expand and eventually the plastic will crack and leak, rendering your radiator useless. Worm clamps are fine if you're clamping the hose onto metal.

 

I'll place an order for the spring clamps. I checked this morning and the clamp on the upper hose is also a worm clamp. I'm assuming that factory spring clamp also rusted and must've snapped off and the previous owner replaced it with a worm clamp.