FHC resto nr. 131; Radiator almost finished

I found a radiator under the towel rack in my bath room today 😳 And it had been hiding there for some time. In the first place because due to the Covid pandemic it was difficult to get the correct cleaning products for the depositions remaining on the inside. In the end I decided to try some household products from the local supermarket. First product to be used was drain unblocker. That removed quite a lot more of the deposit, but there was some room for improvement. I wanted to use caustic soda but that wasn’t available locally so I opted for a solution of cleaning vinegar, “normal” soda crystals and boiling water. That did the trick, as a lot of tiny black grit was removed, leaving a fairly clean inside. There’s still a tiny amount of deposit left, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

After which the radiator was put back underneath the already mentioned towel rack pending the stuff needed to tackle the outside: sanding pads and a rattle can of satin black paint. As the radiator didn’t, what you call, get in the way, this was not a priority job. But a few weeks ago I managed to get all materials to finish the job.

But while wondering what to do with a nice Sunday afternoon, I decided to install myself outside. Armed with sanding pads, de-greaser and rattle can. The fact that I spent a nice Saturday afternoon tinkering on ‘t Kreng certainly helped here! After sanding and de-greasing the radiator it was time for the final stage, painting. Another afternoon well spent! And interesting to see the liberal amounts of soldering tin that was used on this radiator. What looks like painting faults or rust patches under the paint, are actually tin blobs!

The last picture shows one more remaining job though: treating the inside of the mounting rails with a rust converter. As I need a good masking foil, in order to prevent the rust converter from getting all over the radiator, that job was postponed till I get to the shed to get the foil! For the actual rust converter I will use Rustox, from the German company Technolit GmbH. Yes, I have a few cans left from the cars body work!

P.s. for the anoraks! That is not the radiator of a ’76 car. But I am upgrading the cars cooling system to the later header tank system, because it is the better cooling set up for a TR7.