Ali radiator. Made one?

[cardiffrob]

I've been looking at the cost of a replacement rad for a 1930s car and wondered if anyone here had made their own from a bought-in core and home made top and bottom tanks. Is it worth trying to make my own or is it a bu66er to get right? Would it be better to form the tanks and send them off? I assume Pace is the company of choice in the UK.

I scoured a scrapyard today to search for a core of suitable size (17.5 inch tall, 12.5 wide and 2 thick) for a vertical flow. Nothing even close.

Thanks.

Leaky of South Wales.

 

[madkayaker]

i guess a lot depends on can you weld ali?

 

[the snooper]

I would have thought the original would have been brass and if you can get hold of a brass core and headers to suit you simply clean flux and solder together

 

[chevy2]

Proalloy are another name to add to Pace for ali rad makers.

 

[cardiffrob]

I can TIG ali but not with the great finesse shown by some of the upper echelons of this website. If you never try these things then you'll never improve, so I usually have a go if there is a decent chance of victory.

I've had very little response from vendors of normal rad material. For about a dozen enquiries I've had 2 replies. I'd accept a standard rad if an ali one was too much trouble so long as I could find a company willing to either sell me a core or do the whole job. Strange that nobody seems to want the work. Modern Britain???

 

[cardiffrob]

Thanks Chevy. They are the ones down the road from Pace, aren't they? I read another thread on here suggesting they sell pretty much the same product. I'll have another telephone fest tomorrow.

Cheers

Rob

 

[chevy2]

Thanks Chevy. They are the ones down the road from Pace, aren't they? I read another thread on here suggesting they sell pretty much the same product. I'll have another telephone fest tomorrow.

Cheers

Rob

A car i did a major build on is going to proalloy next saturday to have a custom ali rad built and some other bits,
If you want to hang on i'll post some pics when it comes back,

Think they're in Haverhill, Suffolk if i remember?

 

[chevy2]

To add,
Theres lots of budget ali rads available from America for a variety of hotrods,
If you can find one thats close enough to fit then Langy on here will be able to import one for you,
it'll be cheaper than you think including all the shipping and taxes.

 

[cardiffrob]

Good suggestion! I looked at a Honda Civic rad that has a core just about 1 inch too short and wondered if I could 'lose' the extra somehow.

Thanks for the help.

 

[rkde]

I work for a company who make radiators, as they are brazed together you will not be able to shorten the core. You could try calsonic in wales, there are quite a few manufactures in the UK. You could get your copper brass unit restored at Grayson as they still do them.

 

[Paul.]

You could give NAR in Northampton a call http://www.nargroup.com/
They will make one off rads and specials in aluminium.

 

[hotrodder]

Wayne at Proalloy is a top bloke, bent over backwards to try and help me out when i needed a core on a very short lead time the other year and gave me several other leads when he couldn't help. While they will sell cores they don't actively retail 'em or produce them to order like Pace Products or NAR etc

Make sure you're sitting down when pricing a one off custom sized core and if you haven't already have a good look around the Pace site for details on how cores are sized i.e. they go by tube length not overall length etc. Mark at Pace is also very helpful

Do you need that much core to cool the engine in question? I made the rad for this (there's a vid of it 'racing' a Lotus 25 but the sound is dubbed)

from memory it's 550mm tube length, 400mm wide (stack height) 2 row 40mm (more like 52mm flange width) and is adequate* for 8+ litres of blown big block Chevy, granted detuned to 550ish bhp and 600 odd torques but still produces lots of waste heat
Ally rads are typically more efficient than copper as the soldered joints kinda negate the heat transfer advantages of copper so you generally need less core

As said you can't shorten the tube length and while it is possible to narrow them the other way i wouldn't recommend it- some places do this by bandsawing through the fins to make new rads, pretty much every rad i've repaired/recored was made this way and popped tubes at the corners next to where it was cut. Rads out of modern cars are typically less than stellar for use in vintage applications as they're often horizontal flow double pass designs i.e. the coolant goes in the top, across, down, back across and out the side it came in. More efficient way of doing things but not so compatible with a tall, narrow grille shell and they're often of a crimped on tank design which doesn't lend itself to modding

I doubt any of the usual rad shops would be happy to use tanks you made, various reasons it's potentially more grief than it's worth to them. Mute point if you have the orgional but most are happy enough to receive a 'cardboard radiator' as a pattern to copy though. This is how Burnham Autos usually get custom rads made (they use Walker radiators IIRC), i ended up doing the tractor rad as the build schedule was soooo hectic there wasn't time to plan things out properly

* We would have liked something bigger due to the type of use the tractor sees (stationary/bumbling around at walking pace most of the time) but there wasn't physically room and while it copes OK the fan cuts in more frequently than we'd like

 

[cardiffrob]

It is thermosyphon so I guess that is why it has such a tall and big core. I'm told that an original style re-core will be £400 to £600 and maybe 1/2 that for a modern film, if I can find anyone who will do it for me. At the same time, an Ebay ad for a Honda Civic ali rad ( a few inches too short) is only £99 inc postage. Even the outlets are in about the right place. I'd just need some mesh to make a stoneguard to hide it.

I was thinking that making a new top tank and exchanging it for the Civic one might work. I believe thermosyphon needs a large top tank to work well.

Here is the one I had in mind... (Is it OK to post this?)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Honda-Civ...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item5d2f8cb4fa

 

[cardiffrob]

Hotrodder. Can I pick your brains again? Seeing that tractor has reminded me of something I'd planned to ask on here a while ago. With the end of MOTs for pre '60 cars in the UK, what has happened with regards to "Daylight MOTs" where old cars could be run without lights? Carry on as normal?
Also, presumably that tractor ran without front wings/mudguards so there must have been some sort of exemption there. Tractors only or could a 1930s car be run wingless? Not easy to find and answer via Google but you're more likely to know than even Mr Plod.

Thanks.

 

[langy]

Aluminium radiators tend to be very expensive here, Everywhere else they are cheap, There are lots of universal sizes available.

Yes you can make your own but I suspect the core will still be expensive if bought here.

This radiator was made in the USA recently for a 32 Ford, cost was £220

 

[hotrodder]

Langy and/or Chevy are likely gonna be more upto speed on the legal stuff than me as i tend to make bits of cars these days rather than full builds. Off the top of my head mudguards are a construction & use thing and nothing to do with MOTs i.e. will (or should) pass without them but remains illegal to use on the road. MOT and roadworthyness being two different things etc. The daylight MOT thing... i don't think it's ever been an official deal in that if it ain't present it can't be tested and for some reason where lights are concerned you get a special advisary notice instead! Having never had a daylight MOT i don't know if that advisary works like a get out of jail free card or not where plod are concerned. Plod typically get very confused by things that are out of the ordinary and with the right attitude can usually blag your way out of bother As long as you aren't taking the mickey they're usually more curious than anything

There's probably various C&U exemptions due to it being a tractor so it might be above board fenderless and lets face it, plod would take one look and think 'waaaaay to much hassle, i'll being doing paperwork for weeks'

Expect to pay 3 times the cost of that ebay rad for a UK made to measure core. Based on what's happened with a mates car who bought a cheapnese ally rad for a fraction of what the core alone would cost me i wouldn't be surprised if it didn't last that long (he got about a year out of it before it split) but on the other hand it's a cheap way to sort a rad if you don't count your time/treat as a learning exercise picking it apart and making a new top tank, hydraulically testing it and sorting mounts etc. Speaking of mounts, make sure it can move about some in them.

ETA mudguards/fenders (used to be at least) a non endorsable fine if you couldn't talk your way out of it but these days there's probably also something in section 59 (ASBO) they could pull out if you fail the legendary attitude test

 

[cardiffrob]

Just found one of those rads using an ali core with plastic ends for £24.99, brand new on Eb*y. For that price it HAS to be worth a punt. I'll have a crack at making the top tank and if it all works out well I'll post on here. If it turns into a pile of molten ali then I won't post.