West Texas Blues

I just bought a 2002 WS6 that's giving me more problems than I thought it would. I also own a 99 T/A. When I was poking around under the hood of the 2002 I noticed (1) the radiator seems to have been replaced and (2) the fan assembly has about an inch of space between it and the radiator on the driver side and almost no space on the pass side. So I checked the 99 and found it was similar. The whole assembly seems to be clipped correctly on both cars. Is this the how they are supposed to be, or do I have two cars assembled incorrectly? On the same note the 02's radiator is thicker than the 99's (is this an issue?) The 02 was spewing coolant through the top of the reservoir cap, so I'm fixing to replace the t-stat first since it's pretty inexpensive. Why else might that happen?

NOTE: these photos are the 99. the gap on the 02 was more obvious

sjsingle1

iTrader: (1)

the only way it could be thicker is if someone changed it out to a LT1 rad............all 98-02 were the same