Good news - Bad news

[Bobo W]

The good news

After many years of pestering I have manged to persuade a good friend to come down to Le Mans this year. In preparation for the event he has bought himself an early 5.0 litre Griff.

The bad news

The overheating when stationary in traffic for any longer than 15 minutes is causing him to consider not taking the car because he is worried of it breaking down.

Can you give me suggestions to pass on that could have a cooling effect on his car.

[pebbledash]

Do the fans actualy kick when stationary ???

[mrmaggit]

Wols do!

[Apache]

sounds like the rad needs flushing out

[shpub]

The cooling system is faulty if this is what the car is doing. Could be a whole load of things such as blocked rad, otter switch not right, wrong stat fitted etc etc etc. Could be low on coolent, head gasket issue and so on. The car may have a single fan and switching to the double fan is what is needed.

Search this site and you will find loads of information. The bible also covers the cooling system and what should happen and why not in detail.

Steve
www.tvrbooks.co.uk

[andy43]

Get a manual fan override switch - I always put my fans on as soon as I hit traffic in hot weather. Having the heater full blast on hot helps as well (as long as passenger is happy with the sauna) Or fit a modwise clever 2-stage fanswitch thingy. Pop the bonnet when you are stuck in stationary/slow moving traffic - a couple of inches of air gap below the 'screen works wonders on mine when the fans do kick in. Fit a splitter for under the nosecone to divert more air into the rad. Don't forget to shut bonnet when moving again (!). Water wetter is said to help, never worked for me on other cars though. Get proper TVR thermostat (poss. with holes drilled in it for extra flow - not sure on this??). Some people have upgraded their rads I think. All the above assuming the otter switch, fans, rad and cooling system all hunky-dory.

[Bobo W]

Thanks guys, sounds like there are quite a few avenues to go down which should mean 1 extra Griffith at Le Mans this year.

[mrmaggit]

Apache said:

sounds like the rad needs flushing out

Are you referring to Wol?

[angusfaldo]

Apache said:

sounds like the rad needs flushing out

I agree, sounds like the radiator is being less than efficient. If it was something more fundamental it wouldn't last 15 mins in bad traffic, the temp would soar as soon as he was stationary.

Worth checking the sender though.

As for turning on the heating - when mine had an airlock this actually had the opposite effect and the temp when up when I turned on the heat!

Draining down the rad is not the bad bit. Refilling and getting air out the system is. I foolowd the sintructions in Steve's book when I did mine and it was a piece of cake.

[Simpo Two]

angusfaldo said:

I foolowd the sintructions in Steve's book when I did mine and it was a piece of cake.

You mean there was a piece of cake blocking the system? That would explain the overheating...

[andy43]

Must be Steve Heaths 'Recipes for a sweet tooth' book, instead of the one about TVRs. Was it the cherry and almond

[adamc]

this comment may be unneccesary, but when purchased, my Griff overheated in a similar way. I accepted it as normal, having owned a few tweaked cars before (see profile)......

Anyway, thanks to help from people here, I found that one of the fans wasn't coming on.

You would not believe the difference one little relay can make!

Now the Griff is actually less prone to overheating than any of my previous cars- can you believe it?

[kevinday]

Another simple thing to check is that the belt drive for the water pump is tight enough to turn the pump properly. I assume this is a pre-serp if it is an early 500? I had a R/Rover with this problem, fine in normal driving, the airflow kept it cool, stationary, no air flow to help and overheating occured.