New radiator for ‘t Kreng

In the summer of last year I mentioned a tiny leak from ‘t Kreng’s radiator. At the time I decided to keep an eye on it and put the almost 30 years old radiator’s renewal a bit further up the car’s to-do-list. Fast forward 8 months and the coolant level in the header tank was dropping what seemed ever more quickly. Though still not life threatening; I could easily drive the car for several hours without the coolant level dropping enough to ignite the low-coolant-level -light.

But every time I took the car for a spin (every few weeks) the coolant level needed topping up by approximately 0,25-0,35 litres. And as I couldn’t find any other traces of coolant leaks from the engine I decided to bite the bullet and pay a visit to local alloy fabricator H&S Speed Equipment. The brief was the same as thirteen years ago, make me another alloy radiator for one of my TR7’s. And last week I got a message that it was ready for collection. Well ahead of the schedule, that's always good!

It wasn’t cheap, but the quality of the work again looks very good. And as with the radiator he fabricated for the DHC earlier, this one too is slightly larger compared to the original TR7 radiators. Always good to have a little more coolant and cooling surface doing its job! But the main reason for the slightly larger dimensions is the fact that this way a standard alloy cooling matrix could be used.

And because my work agenda was empty for yesterday (Good Friday), I decided to take the day off from work and install the new radiator. Which was pretty straight forward, though while removing the old radiator, I was reminded that it would be a good idea to cover the front of the fan and the back of the oil cooler with a cardboard shroud. This to prevent damage to the new radiator by the protruding bolts or sharp edge on the oil cooler. Lesson learned!

In the picture below the two radiators are put side by side for size comparison. And the anoraks should already have noticed that the old radiator isn’t a standard TR7 item. It is slightly higher compared to an original one, and it is slightly thicker. But compared to the new one the cooling matrix’s dimensions are slightly smaller.

And the new radiator in position, showing the crude but very effective cardboard protection shroud in place over the fan. As a result of which the new radiator slipped in position without any problems.  In the end, I spent more time modifying the aluminium mounting plate for the interior ventilation hose, than I needed to replace the radiator . . .

And finally a few pictures of the radiator in place, with the hoses connected and the system filled with fresh coolant. So far no visible leaks on the hose connections. A test drive this weekend will tell if this has finally solved the loss of coolant!