Contrary to the assertion that there exists "forum darlings" who should be ignored, we have a ton of experience with the TJ cooling system. Most may not be aware that there is a group of us who have worked on this over many years here in SoCal where we need the system to work very well. We share info and what works and what has not worked. We all went through the same process over the years. Mopar can't be that good, surely the aftermarket is better so we all did what everyone does, screw Mopar, we're going to try the "fancy" shit. We did, I started with several all copper and brass CSF units because I was told Mopar sucked. My wife kicking my ass because she couldn't run the AC on the freeway convinced me at least part of that was wrong. The leaks starting several places in the others convinced me on the rest of them. Lots of folks have come through here and the other folks I'm in contact with and we keep track of what we see. We've seen early failures in all of them except 2. Mopar and Northern. I'm not a fan of Northern because they built it on a rig without an AC condenser and you (a) have to pull the grill to install one and (b) you have to build spacers to move them towards the motor to get them off of the AC condenser. Their experiences and mine are exactly the same. We've tried most of them, they either don't cool or they don't last very long or both.
I just installed a Denso in a rig as a test. It is a manual so the demand on the system isn't quite as high so it seemed safe to cool and so far it has but we are not in the hot months yet. I am under obligation to swap in one of my Mopar versions if it won't cool as it should. I am not under obligation if it fails in short order.
I am like everyone else, I want a great alternative that is under 400 bucks. I want them to cool as well as OEM and I want them to last a 100,000 miles. That is a fair request for that much money. Right now, I don't have that answer but as you can see, I've got limited stock on hand so the answer needs to be found.
I only have one regret in all of this. I was doing some work on a rig other than the cooling system and it had a nice looking fully welded nicely made 2 row aluminum radiator in it. Like always, I asked him how it was and they related that it had been in use several years, it worked as well as OEM in the hot months, and it was relatively inexpensive about 300 or so. Where did you get it? Forgot. Do you remember the brand? Nope, I don't and it has been so long, all I remember is I carried into a shop after I bought it and had them install it. So there it is, the elusive well made cheap unicorn and we won't ever know what it was or where it came from.
