I've got a buddy who's got a truck identical to mine. 98 4.6/auto/2wd. He's on his 5th radiator. He said the other 4 he's had have fallen victim to an electrolosys problem thats is a result of an electric charge that builds up in the cooling system and weakens the metal in the radiator, resulting in the replacement of it. He's got 220,000 on his; I've got 105,000 on mine.
So I've noticed that my radiator is leaking slightly. It doesnt drip but I can see a couple of wet spots that shouldnt be there on the fan shroud and surrounding area and it was about 1/3-1/2 gallon low on antifreeze over the last 6,000 or so miles. It's also smelling of coolant more than it used to when you walk by the front end when its warmed up.

I've heard the problem is in the coolant that Ford uses...it doesnt contain any Zinc additive that takes the electric charge out of the coolant.
What kind should I replace mine with? How much are replacement radiators, and I haven't really looked hard yet, but can a backyard wrencher replace a 4.6 radiator easily?

 

Yea it can be done if I can do it anybody can , the hardest part was the transmission lines in my opinion... It was actually easier than I thought it would be..My old one had about a 3in split right at the seam..It was weird some times it would spew the water out then other times it wouldn't even though it had that large of a split...Decent price too, if I can remember correctly it was less than 150.00. If I can find the place I will let you know, heck you probably allready done it since your post was the 16th of Dec..