My car is 5 years old and the third radiator has just failed
The Caterham rad just about lasted the warranty, so I bought a nice shiny Radtec made specially for my car.
That lasted about 9 months, and fortunately they replaced it free of charge. The replacement has now started leaking from where the core meets the side tank. I noticed a drip last autumn and found a loose jubilee clip, but then it just kept dripping without any pressure in the system.
Here is the Radtec in situ:
A new Caterham radiator is £233.10 + delivery, and a new Radtec is £244 + vat not so bad as a one off purchase, but at my failure rate, that's an expensive habit.
Not being a fan of throwing good money after bad, I was considering my options when Martin asked for help bleeding the radiator on his Westfield........
I didn't help much with his car (sorry
), but he sowed the seeds of a plan and I came away with his old Polo radiator, and an aluminium hose joiner.The Polo radiator was ideal apart from two problems:
1, the air bleed at the top nearside sticks out sideways rather than behind the radiatior and
2, the main hose spacing is very close to the radiator mount spacing on my car
Armed with Martins radiator, I decided to have a go and made up a plywood support. To give clearance for the bleed hose, I mounted the radiator as far to the offside as I dared. When i tried it, there was clearance for that hose, but I couldn't get the nose cone on and the main hoses were very near the rad mounts on the chassis.
Back to the drawing board. As the rad was hitting on the lower offside corner, I decided to angle it so the nearside top corner was substantially higher then the offside. As the breather was at the highest point, I decided this would be OK and it also gave more room for the upper main hose.
When I tried it in, there was clearance all round, and I had sourced a suitable air bleed hose from Ebay with a tight 90 degree bend which just missed the nose. The lower hose was still extremely close to the chassis, but I decided to go for it and using a power file I ground some metal off the radiator mount but without affecting the actual chassis tube
All along, I had thought I might be lucky with the lower hose, and having cut about a foot out of the middle I found Martin's joiner pipe connected the two parts perfectly........result
By now, I had treated myself to a new radiator (£26.85 delivered
) and paid £5.95 for the bleed hose, all I need now was two jubilee clips.........Here's a tip, don't buy from ebay when you're tired and mistakenly believe jubilee clips are sized by their circumference...........
The clips that arrived fortunately were the right size to replace the rusty ones holding the shield on my catalyst
so it wasn't wasted money!So came the moment of truth on Saturday, the self bleeding worked well, and the fan came on and went off in a similar fashion to when I had the Radtec. I had a nervous moment when fitting the nose with the engine running as I could hear the rad vibrating against the glass fibre, but as soon as the lower dzus fasteners were secured it stopped completely.
Here are some photos of the finished installation:
And this one is with the chassis level to show the angle I had to mount it:
The jury is out until I get to try the car at Goodwood in April, but I am hoping with only 120 bhp, the Polo radiator should cool it enough, after all a similar one was cooling Martin's tuned 2 litre Zetec.
When I take the nose cone off, it doesn't look as impressive, but for £35 fitted and thanks to Martin's help, I have saved £200 this time.
If I need another 3 radiators in the next 5 years, I should save another £600
