Opinions wanted...

[andy-w]

The fans on my radiator are mounted directly to it, as in there is no gap between the fan housing and the radiator.
I think that when the car is in traffic the fans will only be drawing air through the radiator inside the fan cowls so at least a third of the radiator will not be getting any cooling.
I have seen a lot of chims with a box on the rear of the radiator and the fans mounted on this, surely that will be much better at drawing air through the whole radiator or at least more than the way mine are mounted at the moment.

Would this be thinking along the right lines before i start to make a box???

[sjpalmer1]

Your thinking is correct, but make sure that its a good fit with no leak paths.
Another thing to look at for improved cooling is the gap between the front face of the radiator and the body.
What happens, The air basically goes round and round in a loop, sucked through radiator by fans, air then goes back through the gap into the nose of the car and then gets sucked through again.

[u63af]

Is the car overheating? My one has the fan the same way as yours and it never goes above 90 degrees. I have recently had the rad recored and got an extra core added. The car now sits at lower temps on the motorway.

[Ribol]

These rads are worked very hard and lose efficiency very quickly. The easiest way to check the state of the core is run you fingers along the "fins" parallel to the tubes, if they move rather than bend the core has had it.
If the rad is anything over 2/3 years old you would almost certainly benefit from a recore.

[The Surveyor]

Andy

Is yours like this one....

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TVR-CHIMAERA-RA

Or are your fans just loose mounted on the radiator with free core around? Not suggesting that you put a bid on the Ebay item as it looks an expensive replacement, especially if yours isnt overheating...

Cheers, Paul

[andy-w]

Thats is what i am after!!!
Or should i say was...i made a box up over the weekend out of 3mm aluminium...looks a lot better than the one in that picture!!!

My fans were mounted directly to the radiator with, like you say, free core surrounding them using cable ties...funny thing is, the bloke in the advert mentions buying his car from the same bloke i brought mine off up in Blyth...read my profile for more info...!!!

[m4rk]

I was recently grubbing around under the bonnet when I came across a short piece of wire with spade connecters attached to the sender for the temp gauge. I couldn't see what use it was and so I removed it. Over the next few weeks I found my temps reached around 95C whereas they used to be around 90C. For a while I thought this could be a problem with my new number plate which I had just fitted. Anyway I was ar TVR for a chat and I mentioned the problem. It seems that the short bit of wire had a resistor in it. Apparently TVR had fitted these to fudge the temperature gauge to read lower. I guess they were concerned about the stress induced to owners as the temps rose alarmingly close to the red zone!! Being supicius sort I had kept the bit of wire and when fitted the temps returned to the normal, but now known to be fictitious, value

[Aaron C. Reskew]

Some of the early cars did have the fans fastened directly to the rad. Fitting the box or cowl is supposed to help the air pass through better when the fans are on.
The rad on ebay is probably from a 4.5 or 5.0 litre car as it has the more powerfull curved blade Spal fans fitted. The 4.0 litre fans are straight bladed.
Incidently, the same rad is fitted to the Cerbera, so i can't see any reason for not fitting the same type to a Tamora. Only the later cars are fitted with an aluminium cored rad.

The foam infill around the front of the rad usually blows out.
I have found door sealing rubber to be a better alternative (£5 a pack from motor factors) which is pushed onto the edge of the fibreglass opening . Some relieving of the opening is usually required so the foam rubber does not cover any of the core.

Edited by Aaron C. Reskew on Tuesday 3rd October 17:51