Hold(en) my beer - Monaro, Ute and Commodore content

[SturdyHSV]

Was chatting to someone about whether to get a shiny new radiator as my original one would somewhat let the side down in the engine bay.

The originals are an aluminium core with plastic end tanks that can eventually crack, Mishimoto do an all aluminium replacement. Stock of this was looking a little sparse (it's no longer on their website either) so really that was all the excuse I needed



It is very shiny indeed. I am tempted to paint it black though, I will likely drop it in the engine bay at some point and see whether I feel it draws the eye too much from the engine.

Physics discussions on painting an aluminium radiator black are welcome

The Internet is leaning about 75:25 that it'll make no discernible difference...

[Oneball]

You could mask off the core and paint the rest. Doesn’t the plastic trim cover most of the rad from sight?

[gweaver]

Could you have it anodised?
Personally I would leave it.

[SturdyHSV]

Oneball said:

You could mask off the core and paint the rest. Doesn’t the plastic trim cover most of the rad from sight?

That's a fair point, I think really I need to put it back in the car and see how it looks / how much is visible and decide from there. I've chucked most of the plastic trim, I have an over the radiator intake so I got rid of it at that point.

There is the matter of the fans etc. hanging off the back though which do still have some plastic trim that covers the top of the core, so there might not be much of it visible. Perhaps something to have a play with at lunch time

gweaver said:

Could you have it anodised?
Personally I would leave it.

That's a good point, I had the fuel rails done and that wasn't too expensive, I could even go orange

I'll definitely hold off making any decisions until I've mocked it up in the car

[gweaver]

SturdyHSV said:

I could even go orange

[SturdyHSV]

gweaver said:

SturdyHSV said:

I could even go orange

Agreed

[SturdyHSV]

A shot of a carrier bag didn't really do the radiator justice, so here's some engine bay shots. I'm going to leave it shiny for now







Also, there's definitely plenty of room to mount the coilpacks on the firewall, so this is something I'll be tinkering with. Will then make up some long black HT leads to run to the plugs.

May run them over the manifold / rocker covers, or may see if there's a tidy way to route them that would hide them from view...

[SturdyHSV]

Ah bks



That goes behind the starter motor and covers up the opening to the bellhousing.

I was taking a picture to show a mate (Camaro) the connector for the knock sensor, and noticed in the background I could see the fly wheel. This reminded me about the plastic bits I'd taken off and sure enough... Forgot to put them on!



Passenger side will be easy, driver's side I need to take the starter off, which will be a job to do from underneath because of access to the bolts.

I have been hovering over the Buy button on a set of Quickjacks, jacking the car up in the garage is a bit of a sketchy and very awkward process, so I think I can justify the £1100 or so right?

[Rushjob]

Yep, get them bought. Then report back on how good they are!

[Polly Grigora]

SturdyHSV said:

Great achievement, It's looking good

[Krikkit]

That radiator looks great as-is, there's so much good stuff in the engine bay you won't be distracted for long by the rad.

[scottos]

Just been catching up, its been awhile! Looks like you've been having plenty of fun top job for reporting the highs and the lows!

On the quickjacks thing, just do it, i considered them for ages and then made the purchase after i nearly stuck a jack stand through my sump and then passenger footwell. Never looked back since!

[Oneball]

Looking good, rad works in silver. I’ve got one in my Corvette and it looks ok too.

[SturdyHSV]

Rushjob said:

Yep, get them bought. Then report back on how good they are!

I mean, if you insist

Polly Grigora said:

SturdyHSV said:

Great achievement, It's looking good

Cheers, it's what I had in my mind as what I'd love to do when I first got the car so it's nice to be making it a reality, especially having never even seen a spark plug when I got the car

Krikkit said:

That radiator looks great as-is, there's so much good stuff in the engine bay you won't be distracted for long by the rad.

Yep, I'm inclined to agree. I think I'm going to paint the strut brace mounts black as they don't really add anything up there being a silvery grey.

scottos said:

Just been catching up, its been awhile! Looks like you've been having plenty of fun top job for reporting the highs and the lows!

On the quickjacks thing, just do it, i considered them for ages and then made the purchase after i nearly stuck a jack stand through my sump and then passenger footwell. Never looked back since!

I had at least watched / read enough before starting to expect that long term projects are mostly about dragging yourself out of the pit of despair during the lows Oh and catastrophic financial decisions

Speaking of which, as you lot are such a bad influence then Quickjacks have just been ordered frm Costco. Hopefully they arrive quickly and I can start randomly jacking up every car I find

Oneball said:

Looking good, rad works in silver. I’ve got one in my Corvette and it looks ok too.

Yep, rad looks plenty good enough in silver. What generation of Corvette?

[Oneball]

SturdyHSV said:

Oneball said:

Looking good, rad works in silver. I’ve got one in my Corvette and it looks ok too.

Yep, rad looks plenty good enough in silver. What generation of Corvette?

C3 1969, seemed like a good idea at the time to build another race car and turned into a 2 year project.







Interested how you get on with the Jack stands

[SturdyHSV]

Oneball said:

C3 1969, seemed like a good idea at the time to build another race car and turned into a 2 year project.







Interested how you get on with the Jack stands

That looks great, really purposeful too. Is there a build thread about it?

And yep, I'll report back on the quickjacks and see. I mostly end up sliding under the car from the side due to it being in the garage so that's about the only way I can see them negatively impacting how I work on the car, but being able to get it so high and so quickly is going to be brilliant.

Not to mention things like oil changes and such on the other cars, assuming there's a flat enough part of the drive they'll be even more convenient.

[Oneball]

SturdyHSV said:

That looks great, really purposeful too. Is there a build thread about it?

And yep, I'll report back on the quickjacks and see. I mostly end up sliding under the car from the side due to it being in the garage so that's about the only way I can see them negatively impacting how I work on the car, but being able to get it so high and so quickly is going to be brilliant.

Not to mention things like oil changes and such on the other cars, assuming there's a flat enough part of the drive they'll be even more convenient.

Thanks, sorry no build thread on PH, did do one on the CorvetteUK forum.

Big advantage I see is there’s so much plastic under trays on modern stuff. That there is usually just the jacking point itself and nothing else.

[SturdyHSV]

Using the wagon as a wagon...

20sqm of flooring, underlay and 6 2.4m lengths of skirting board. Oh and an ironing board

The skirting board went between the seats and sat on top of the armrest, but wasn't in the way of the gear selector so fairly comfortable load lugging.



Yes, I waited until we got home to take a picture of my boot

[hemidom]

Those plastic ends on the radiators really are crap, remember mine going after finding a puddle on the driveway! For my sins I did replace like for like though so that's probably due for replacement in the near future for the new owner as it was about 2014/15 when it went.

[Oneball]

Have you got a towbar on the Commodore? Has it got a plated towing capacity?