Replacement radiator, any advice
Discussion
Morning
I'm looking to replace the rad on my chim. There seems to be a few to choose from and wondered if anyone had any recommendations? I've looked at ACT, arron radiator and racetech. Has anyone got one of these? Also can you upgrade the fans for better cooling?
Thanks in advance
Gareth
I'm looking to replace the rad on my chim. There seems to be a few to choose from and wondered if anyone had any recommendations? I've looked at ACT, arron radiator and racetech. Has anyone got one of these? Also can you upgrade the fans for better cooling?
Thanks in advance
Gareth
I bought an Ali one from a company called high flow, excellent quality and very reasonable.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gAssing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
http://www.pistonheads.com/gAssing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Edited by sapper on Saturday 22 August 10:50
I think unless its terminal you would be better of getting the old one reconditioned.
I have just replaced my rad with one from Aaron Radiators on Tuesday just gone, so far so good.
Fans kick in at 82 and at cruise sits at 70. But then the old one did that too. That was an alloy one, which cracked.
I have just replaced my rad with one from Aaron Radiators on Tuesday just gone, so far so good.
Fans kick in at 82 and at cruise sits at 70. But then the old one did that too. That was an alloy one, which cracked.
TVRGareth said:
Is there a difference in the cooling?
If I'm on the motorway it will happily sit at 70-80 but in slope/stationary traffic it goes above 90 and the fans kick in quite regularly.
Mine sits at 80 most of the time. In traffic on hot day it will creep up to 85 or so but come down again once the fans kick in.If I'm on the motorway it will happily sit at 70-80 but in slope/stationary traffic it goes above 90 and the fans kick in quite regularly.
Bought a Racetech rad last year, first one I received was twisted, contacted them and they replaced it asap, but I didn't think the quality was that good on either. It was wider than the standard one and so was an even tighter fit, than the one I removed.
I have had air lock problems, which I thought I cured, but now the otter switch seems to have packed up, so having to use manual switch as soon as I am running slower, but temp still shoots up from 75 ish to just below red.
Oh well I'll get it sorted sometime, good luck with yours.
I have had air lock problems, which I thought I cured, but now the otter switch seems to have packed up, so having to use manual switch as soon as I am running slower, but temp still shoots up from 75 ish to just below red.
Oh well I'll get it sorted sometime, good luck with yours.
Its absolutely no surprise to me there are a lot of people on these pages that have reported problems with their aluminum radiators splitting.
Keep in mind a split radiator can be catastrophic, a split is very different to a pin hole!
I'd definitely go with having your current radiator reconditioned, a lot of people seem to get very excited about aluminum rads and make the assumption they offer improved cooling, quite the opposite in fact!
Lets be 100% clear here an aluminum radiator is not more thermally efficient than an old school copper/brass alloy tanked one with the same core thickness, the only benefit of fitting an aluminum rad is it's lighter.
Indeed the copper/brass alloy used in old school radiator construction conducts heat considerably better than aluminum does.
Furthermore its important to be aware that the Chimaera simply doesn't need a more thermally efficient rad anyway, indeed such a rad would be undesirable as the car will run too cool on the open road.
In addition to this we should consider the nature of the two materials in question and the environment they are expected to work in, the copper/brass alloy used in traditional radiator manufacture is very flexible and forgiving indeed, while aluminum has the habit of splitting at stress points.
Any radiator in a Chimaera is subject to torsional stresses and vibration, both combine to create a rather undesirable environment for any radiator, remember our cars are a separate body bolted to a separate chassis which means vibration. In a modern monocoque car you bolt the radiator into the chassis because the body is the chassis, on a Chimaera you drop the rad into the body which moves about a lot.
As such you are far better off opting for a significantly more flexible and forgiving traditional copper/brass alloy tanked rad than a stress crack prone aluminum one.
Also consider its very very important the radiator's dimensions are absolutely correct, if its not been made to the exact dimensions of your original rad your new one may well be be subject to even greater stresses & strains, you might get away with this on a more flexible copper/brass alloy tanked rad but not with a soft split prone aluminum one.
The best way to ensure a radiator is made to the exact dimensions of your original is to supply your original to the maker for reference, this is exactly what you do if you get your existing radiator reconditioned.
If you just order up an aluminum one off the shelf you are taking a risk it may not fit absolutely perfectly, it may drop in after a little fettling but can you be 100% sure it's not subject to increased stresses in everyday use?
Given that copper/brass alloy is a far better and more flexible material to make a radiator from, given that there is no thermal advantage in going aluminum, given that you don't need a more thermally efficient radiator anyway, given that aluminum is prone to splitting, and given the best way to build a dimensionaly perfect rad is to start with your original.
I would definitely go with reconditioning your existing radiator rather than buying one of the aluminum ones off the shelf.
Cheaper too
Just make sure you find a good well skilled old school radiator reconditioner who still uses traditional brazed & soldered copper/brass alloy materials and you'll not do better.
PS: Avoid bonded plastic tank rads, they may be fine in a modern car but not in a separate chassis & body Chimaera where fex and vibration are much much greater!
Copper/brass alloy is best, no question
Keep in mind a split radiator can be catastrophic, a split is very different to a pin hole!
I'd definitely go with having your current radiator reconditioned, a lot of people seem to get very excited about aluminum rads and make the assumption they offer improved cooling, quite the opposite in fact!
Lets be 100% clear here an aluminum radiator is not more thermally efficient than an old school copper/brass alloy tanked one with the same core thickness, the only benefit of fitting an aluminum rad is it's lighter.
Indeed the copper/brass alloy used in old school radiator construction conducts heat considerably better than aluminum does.
Furthermore its important to be aware that the Chimaera simply doesn't need a more thermally efficient rad anyway, indeed such a rad would be undesirable as the car will run too cool on the open road.
In addition to this we should consider the nature of the two materials in question and the environment they are expected to work in, the copper/brass alloy used in traditional radiator manufacture is very flexible and forgiving indeed, while aluminum has the habit of splitting at stress points.
Any radiator in a Chimaera is subject to torsional stresses and vibration, both combine to create a rather undesirable environment for any radiator, remember our cars are a separate body bolted to a separate chassis which means vibration. In a modern monocoque car you bolt the radiator into the chassis because the body is the chassis, on a Chimaera you drop the rad into the body which moves about a lot.
As such you are far better off opting for a significantly more flexible and forgiving traditional copper/brass alloy tanked rad than a stress crack prone aluminum one.
Also consider its very very important the radiator's dimensions are absolutely correct, if its not been made to the exact dimensions of your original rad your new one may well be be subject to even greater stresses & strains, you might get away with this on a more flexible copper/brass alloy tanked rad but not with a soft split prone aluminum one.
The best way to ensure a radiator is made to the exact dimensions of your original is to supply your original to the maker for reference, this is exactly what you do if you get your existing radiator reconditioned.
If you just order up an aluminum one off the shelf you are taking a risk it may not fit absolutely perfectly, it may drop in after a little fettling but can you be 100% sure it's not subject to increased stresses in everyday use?
Given that copper/brass alloy is a far better and more flexible material to make a radiator from, given that there is no thermal advantage in going aluminum, given that you don't need a more thermally efficient radiator anyway, given that aluminum is prone to splitting, and given the best way to build a dimensionaly perfect rad is to start with your original.
I would definitely go with reconditioning your existing radiator rather than buying one of the aluminum ones off the shelf.
Cheaper too
Just make sure you find a good well skilled old school radiator reconditioner who still uses traditional brazed & soldered copper/brass alloy materials and you'll not do better.
PS: Avoid bonded plastic tank rads, they may be fine in a modern car but not in a separate chassis & body Chimaera where fex and vibration are much much greater!
Copper/brass alloy is best, no question
For me it's a bit like silicone brake fluid, poly bushes and Evens waterless coolant. It's all too easy to get sucked into all the marketing hype without realising traditional materials have been around for decades for very good reason.
The reason being they are the end result of decades and decades of testing & development!
We're all looking for ways to improve our cars but sometimes what's been used for years simply doesn't need improving on, indeed with some of these new products you often introduce issues you never would of had if you'd just stuck to the proven tried and tested parts.
In the case of aluminum radiators it's fair to say they've been around for a very long time in the race car world, but only because there is a big weight advantage. In every other area on on road car an aluminum radiator is actually inferior to a traditional copper/brass tanked one, and is the reason road car manufactures didn't take it up.
Indeed metal prices go up and down and often it would be cheaper to build radiators in aluminum than the traditional copper/brass alloy. Car manufactures love cheaper materials because they deliver bigger profits, but only if they are reliable because if they fail they end up more expensive in the long run due to recalls and loss of faith in their product.
For this reason all the big car manufactures completely jumped passed aluminum as a radiator tank material when they were looking for a cheaper alternative to the expensive but ideal copper/brass alloys traditionally used. In most cases they opted for epoxy bonded plastic tanks which work well in modern cars but are completely unsuitable for our separate chassis TVRs.
If I was building a race car I'd probably choose an aluminum radiator because the weight advantage is significant, but lets be honest with ourselves here most of us use our cars exclusively or at lest 95% on the road.
A Chimaera doesn't exactly deliver Rolls Royce levels of suspension compliance and our road surfaces only seem to get worse every year, add to that the separate body/chassis construction of our cars and there's quite a lot of shuddering vibration going through the whole car as we crash about from one pothole to the next.
Personally and because of this I would no more fit an aluminum radiator to a road going Chimaera than I would do away with the metalastic suspension bushes originally used by TVR, but horses for courses and all that, and I'm sure there will be loads of people on here that swear by poly bushes and have had many years split free life out of their sexy aluminum radiators.
All I'm really saying in response to this post is aluminum radiators are not for me on my road going Chimaera, but rather than just dismiss them out of hand I've tried to present the truth about them in a reasoned and factual way so others can make their own minds up.
It's your choice, just don't blame me if you spend a good chunk of your hard earned money on a fancy aluminum radiator only to find it splits after a year or two of normal use.
The reason being they are the end result of decades and decades of testing & development!
We're all looking for ways to improve our cars but sometimes what's been used for years simply doesn't need improving on, indeed with some of these new products you often introduce issues you never would of had if you'd just stuck to the proven tried and tested parts.
In the case of aluminum radiators it's fair to say they've been around for a very long time in the race car world, but only because there is a big weight advantage. In every other area on on road car an aluminum radiator is actually inferior to a traditional copper/brass tanked one, and is the reason road car manufactures didn't take it up.
Indeed metal prices go up and down and often it would be cheaper to build radiators in aluminum than the traditional copper/brass alloy. Car manufactures love cheaper materials because they deliver bigger profits, but only if they are reliable because if they fail they end up more expensive in the long run due to recalls and loss of faith in their product.
For this reason all the big car manufactures completely jumped passed aluminum as a radiator tank material when they were looking for a cheaper alternative to the expensive but ideal copper/brass alloys traditionally used. In most cases they opted for epoxy bonded plastic tanks which work well in modern cars but are completely unsuitable for our separate chassis TVRs.
If I was building a race car I'd probably choose an aluminum radiator because the weight advantage is significant, but lets be honest with ourselves here most of us use our cars exclusively or at lest 95% on the road.
A Chimaera doesn't exactly deliver Rolls Royce levels of suspension compliance and our road surfaces only seem to get worse every year, add to that the separate body/chassis construction of our cars and there's quite a lot of shuddering vibration going through the whole car as we crash about from one pothole to the next.
Personally and because of this I would no more fit an aluminum radiator to a road going Chimaera than I would do away with the metalastic suspension bushes originally used by TVR, but horses for courses and all that, and I'm sure there will be loads of people on here that swear by poly bushes and have had many years split free life out of their sexy aluminum radiators.
All I'm really saying in response to this post is aluminum radiators are not for me on my road going Chimaera, but rather than just dismiss them out of hand I've tried to present the truth about them in a reasoned and factual way so others can make their own minds up.
It's your choice, just don't blame me if you spend a good chunk of your hard earned money on a fancy aluminum radiator only to find it splits after a year or two of normal use.
Hi Gareth,
I had a simple standard re-core and it completely settled the temperatures under the bonnet. New triple cores are readily available Landy parts that all radiator specialists should be able to identify and fit without problems. On presenting my rad to my local radiator specialist, he instantly said
" I don't recognise the brackets (TVR specific) but that looks like a Landy rad"
Which is sort of what I wanted to hear!
My 2 pieces of advice if you go down this route would be to:-
1. Replace your otter switch (screwed in to the rad) and controls the fans. They cost around £20 and once they start to fail they dont control the fans properly, which can cause overheating.
2. Mark on a piece of string the exact distance between the 2 locating holes in the body that the rad sits in and emphasise this distance to the fabricator. If the new rad is welded back together even 5mm wider than the original it wont sit back in to the mounting holes, or even fit back between the inner wings, and the swear words will fly!
My recore cost around £170 including otter switch and coolant.
For piece of mind, you may want to replace the rubber bushes that locate to the top of the rad and soak up a lot of the vibrations and also the temp sender. £30 or so extra.
I had a simple standard re-core and it completely settled the temperatures under the bonnet. New triple cores are readily available Landy parts that all radiator specialists should be able to identify and fit without problems. On presenting my rad to my local radiator specialist, he instantly said
" I don't recognise the brackets (TVR specific) but that looks like a Landy rad"
Which is sort of what I wanted to hear!
My 2 pieces of advice if you go down this route would be to:-
1. Replace your otter switch (screwed in to the rad) and controls the fans. They cost around £20 and once they start to fail they dont control the fans properly, which can cause overheating.
2. Mark on a piece of string the exact distance between the 2 locating holes in the body that the rad sits in and emphasise this distance to the fabricator. If the new rad is welded back together even 5mm wider than the original it wont sit back in to the mounting holes, or even fit back between the inner wings, and the swear words will fly!
My recore cost around £170 including otter switch and coolant.
For piece of mind, you may want to replace the rubber bushes that locate to the top of the rad and soak up a lot of the vibrations and also the temp sender. £30 or so extra.
Hi Gareth
Bit late on the reply here, but my standard 4 litre always ran at around 90 degrees on the gauge, rising to 95 degrees in stationary traffic on hot days. I also saw 100 degrees on a scorching hot day a few years back - something slightly unsettling about seeing it that high!
I had a re-core done last year by local specialist and straight away the gauge during normal driving dropped to 80 degrees. When in traffic there is a slight movement, but certainly not as much as before, and I haven't seen the gauge as high as 90 degrees since.
Worth I believe also noting that there are different fan switches that you can opt for - mine comes on at 92 and off at 87 degrees, but I think some fit a 95 / 88. Guess these figures show that the gauge in the cars isn't that accurate, but I was comfortable that a 10 degree drop on the gauge must be down to greater cooling efficiency due to the new rad.
If you are suffering with high temps then a standard re-core in my opinion will certainly help.
Cheers.
Bit late on the reply here, but my standard 4 litre always ran at around 90 degrees on the gauge, rising to 95 degrees in stationary traffic on hot days. I also saw 100 degrees on a scorching hot day a few years back - something slightly unsettling about seeing it that high!
I had a re-core done last year by local specialist and straight away the gauge during normal driving dropped to 80 degrees. When in traffic there is a slight movement, but certainly not as much as before, and I haven't seen the gauge as high as 90 degrees since.
Worth I believe also noting that there are different fan switches that you can opt for - mine comes on at 92 and off at 87 degrees, but I think some fit a 95 / 88. Guess these figures show that the gauge in the cars isn't that accurate, but I was comfortable that a 10 degree drop on the gauge must be down to greater cooling efficiency due to the new rad.
If you are suffering with high temps then a standard re-core in my opinion will certainly help.
Cheers.
For this reason all the big car manufactures completely jumped passed aluminum as a radiator tank material when they were looking for a cheaper alternative to the expensive but ideal copper/brass alloys traditionally used. In most cases they opted for epoxy bonded plastic tanks which work well in modern cars but are completely unsuitable for our separate chassis TVRs.
[/quote]Assumption the mother of all f
k ups Dave 
stock 2007 Clio all ally inc tanks rather than the common just core with plastic tanks, these are mounted in flexi plastic front panels with a similar mounting to the TVR and I have not changed one yet this on is 8 years +. But is all seriousness I would go with what ever suits your needs nothing wrong with the stock radiator IMO ... here is an example of that Clio rad ...
...
[/quote]Assumption the mother of all f
k ups Dave stock 2007 Clio all ally inc tanks rather than the common just core with plastic tanks, these are mounted in flexi plastic front panels with a similar mounting to the TVR and I have not changed one yet this on is 8 years +. But is all seriousness I would go with what ever suits your needs nothing wrong with the stock radiator IMO ... here is an example of that Clio rad ... ...Edited by Sardonicus on Saturday 29th August 12:55
I spoke with Richard at Hexham Horseless Carriages on Thursday as I get all my work done there. He said I could get a refurbed rad or go for a radtech alloy rad that he said were very good. The issue with my rad is corrosion and it's not cooling efficiently. So a recore is not an option
I've heard good and bad from both options
Decisions decisions decisions
I've heard good and bad from both options
Decisions decisions decisions
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