Nice review. These tools were originally designed for tube and fin coils with continuous fins like on many 90's and earlier cars and most home AC units, not for coils with separate fin rows like this. Unfortunately I have never seen anyone have any success with any kind of fin comb tools on modern automotive style radiators like yours. Something small and thin like a pick or box cutter blade usually works good if you have enough time and patience. Don't worry about making the fins look perfect, as long as they aren't bent over in such a way that's blocking airflow and there's at least a little space between each of the fins in most spots you should be good.
Appreciate this. I was excited to see this as a possible solution. Seems like the combs need to be tapered, narrow at the inlet so you can align imperfect fins. I’ll wait for a different solution to be offered.
I bought one of these but it was not the correct pitch for my condenser( my fault, should have figured that out!). Carrier AC had the correct tool, 20 fins per inch. It worked beautifully to straighten the bent over fins. After previously spending 2k on my truck AC and 5 return trips to the repair shop, the AC was still intermittent. I finally fixed the AC myself with the $20 comb from Carrier. Not sure how much of the 2k$ s spent on new compressor etc was actually needed.
The only reliable way to do this job is with a tool like a small knife, plastic pic etc and do each fin one by one, will not be perfect but if you can just get each to where air can flow through you will be good. Grab a bucket to sit on, bring some music and get to work and get it over with. I find a dental pick is handy as well. I have even brought out my dental water pic to blow out bits of debris in between some of the fins.
Best tool to use is your common box cutter blade. Just be very gentle and try not to cut the fin. Also a scalpel works well. Slow and tedious but with patient's and elbow grease it can be done.
Tool is for a STC style core, not a CT style. Its the biggest misconception for these products because there inst a practical application to use it on for a modern day passenger vehicle because they all have the fin setup like this. It is ment for the outdated (and not used) straight fin setup.
Absolutely - I think the actual issue here is that this information is not offered by the companies that sell the tool. I certainly didn't know. It seems like there's a market opportunity for a tool that is designed for modern fins, but even in theory I don't know what that would look like; perhaps some alternating skinny/thick tines. When the fins are mashed though, I'm not sure any tool with multiple tines would be effective (hence, razor blades and mini screw drivers). Thanks for watching.
@@FigureItAudi I am a radiator repairer in Australia and have worked for the last 15 years in the industry, and the only tools we use for fins like this is a single small sharpened (but not spikey) ended single rod, and jewlers pliers. Sometimes we need to spend quite some time on radiators and condensers and endure some hand cramps. Hehe. Glad there was a video outlaying this fact, as these companies are targeting the gullable that think its gonne be good for a modernday passanger car which is not the case. Is kinda like buying coolant from a service station, as most ppl know, mixing coolants isnt a good thing and your better off just using water to get you out of trouble. All these things = small amount of dollars but ppl wont return the products because they have been removed from packaging and diddnt cost much anyway.
Reading the comments. I trimmed a few teeth off of each side. So instead of clearing 8 or 9 fins at a time, it clears 5 or even 4. It's not the best tool, but the expectations of perfect fit on a bent to shit rad gotta be a joke also. Common sense is #1.
This type of tool is not suitable at all for this application. The quality of course is not very good, but it doesn't even fit. The reason is that this tool is intended to be used on older AC and refrigeration systems. The better brand name tools come with two interchangeble wheels, the second wheel has the higher tpi counts which will provide a better fit. Still IMHO this is not the type of tool to use.
You - and others already commented in this video - are correct. In a more recent video in the S4 build series during a cooling system video, I brought this tool back out and cleared it's name (sort of, I mean, they REALLY shouldn't sell these things for cars) officially. This tool is more of a gimmick at this point.
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Nice review. These tools were originally designed for tube and fin coils with continuous fins like on many 90's and earlier cars and most home AC units, not for coils with separate fin rows like this. Unfortunately I have never seen anyone have any success with any kind of fin comb tools on modern automotive style radiators like yours. Something small and thin like a pick or box cutter blade usually works good if you have enough time and patience. Don't worry about making the fins look perfect, as long as they aren't bent over in such a way that's blocking airflow and there's at least a little space between each of the fins in most spots you should be good.
Thank you! Saved me $10 bucks, lots of frustration
Appreciate this. I was excited to see this as a possible solution.
Seems like the combs need to be tapered, narrow at the inlet so you can align imperfect fins.
I’ll wait for a different solution to be offered.
I bought one of these but it was not the correct pitch for my condenser( my fault, should have figured that out!). Carrier AC had the correct tool, 20 fins per inch. It worked beautifully to straighten the bent over fins. After previously spending 2k on my truck AC and 5 return trips to the repair shop, the AC was still intermittent.
I finally fixed the AC myself with the $20 comb from Carrier. Not sure how much of the 2k$ s spent on new compressor etc was actually needed.
The only reliable way to do this job is with a tool like a small knife, plastic pic etc and do each fin one by one, will not be perfect but if you can just get each to where air can flow through you will be good. Grab a bucket to sit on, bring some music and get to work and get it over with. I find a dental pick is handy as well. I have even brought out my dental water pic to blow out bits of debris in between some of the fins.
Thanks much for uploading this, i was about to waste time and money in one of those...
Best tool to use is your common box cutter blade. Just be very gentle and try not to cut the fin. Also a scalpel works well. Slow and tedious but with patient's and elbow grease it can be done.
Tool is for a STC style core, not a CT style. Its the biggest misconception for these products because there inst a practical application to use it on for a modern day passenger vehicle because they all have the fin setup like this. It is ment for the outdated (and not used) straight fin setup.
Absolutely - I think the actual issue here is that this information is not offered by the companies that sell the tool. I certainly didn't know. It seems like there's a market opportunity for a tool that is designed for modern fins, but even in theory I don't know what that would look like; perhaps some alternating skinny/thick tines. When the fins are mashed though, I'm not sure any tool with multiple tines would be effective (hence, razor blades and mini screw drivers). Thanks for watching.
@@FigureItAudi I am a radiator repairer in Australia and have worked for the last 15 years in the industry, and the only tools we use for fins like this is a single small sharpened (but not spikey) ended single rod, and jewlers pliers. Sometimes we need to spend quite some time on radiators and condensers and endure some hand cramps. Hehe. Glad there was a video outlaying this fact, as these companies are targeting the gullable that think its gonne be good for a modernday passanger car which is not the case. Is kinda like buying coolant from a service station, as most ppl know, mixing coolants isnt a good thing and your better off just using water to get you out of trouble. All these things = small amount of dollars but ppl wont return the products because they have been removed from packaging and diddnt cost much anyway.
Tweezers with a little bit of an edges the best
Reading the comments.
I trimmed a few teeth off of each side.
So instead of clearing 8 or 9 fins at a time, it clears 5 or even 4.
It's not the best tool, but the expectations of perfect fit on a bent to shit rad gotta be a joke also. Common sense is #1.
that's for house air conditioners only
Can u push it from the other side?
What about a wire brush? Or would that do damage?
Are they not supposed to go in from the back, the undamaged side?
That would be news to me but I don't think it would be of much help based on my experience. I get where you're coming from though.
I bought one, the smallest size didn’t fit my fridgidaire. All still bent
Yep, purchased one before I saw your video and wasted my money, too.
Me too!
I'll stick to using my wife's eyebrow tweezer!
Well done but the comb is very poor quality. I bought one today for $39.99…what a shame.
Me too...dang it.
I hope they gave you a refund, shame on them.
The tool was clearly not designed for that style of radiator. Yeah the tool is not great, but you are being dishonest about that aspect.
Geez. Garbage product. Was just about to buy one. Thanks
This type of tool is not suitable at all for this application. The quality of course is not very good, but it doesn't even fit. The reason is that this tool is intended to be used on older AC and refrigeration systems. The better brand name tools come with two interchangeble wheels, the second wheel has the higher tpi counts which will provide a better fit. Still IMHO this is not the type of tool to use.
You - and others already commented in this video - are correct. In a more recent video in the S4 build series during a cooling system video, I brought this tool back out and cleared it's name (sort of, I mean, they REALLY shouldn't sell these things for cars) officially. This tool is more of a gimmick at this point.
I can’t believe I just watched this fail video!
What a waste of time your tool is faulty not the design !!!!
Yeah the tool is a waste
I bought this thing before watching your video. It's useless! Like a palestinian alarm clock!