Hi! I'm new to this forum and the whole Honda thing, as I've just bought a 3rd generation Civic hatchback (1985 1.5 Hondamatic, to be more certain) as my first car. The main two reasons why I wanted this car was 1) my grandfather (r.i.p.) used to drive one when I was a little kid and even tough I don't remember much about that car itself, I remember that I liked it and that it was fun. Reason 2) I figured that in the past they made cars, that were advanced enough to provide comfort and all the necessary features, but simple enough for people to fix them themselves; in other words - I think it will eventually help me get a hold of some deeper knowledge about cars, engines and mechanical processes etc.

I instantly ran into a problem - when i checked the car out and bought it everything seemed ok, but when i came home, after a while I noticed that the coolant is leaking, and later on I saw that the radiator stays wet on the bottom left corner. Today i took the car into a repair shop and now got a call, that they couldn't find a radiator anywhere (none of the local stores have them in stock). Maybe anyone of you guys had to change a radiator in a 3gen Hondamatic Civic? I've only found one radiator available in europe right now, but it would be too expensive, as it's a copper/brass type, plus it's for a manual transmission car. Or maybe radiators didn't vary between automatics and manuals back then?

For those who didn't want to read it all:
1. Is there any way to replace the radiator in a 1985 automatic Civic? (OEM is not necessary from the technical part; I would be satisfied with a cheaper and thicker aluminum option)
2. Did radiators vary between manual and automatic transmission versions of the aforementioned car?

I could add some pictures of my Honda later on, that is if someone's interested to see a piece of 1985 japanese design beauty.

 

a bit late... but any on-line place will have a radiator for a civic, this is how I got mine for my 85. 1800radiator dot com or so.

the difference between manual and auto, it that the auto has a passage for the automatic transmission fluid to be cooled or kept at temperature, you will see 2 hoses coming from the trans to the radiator.

The problem with aluminum is that they radiate a lot of heat... we installed one on a later model...

Good luck