Radiator Upgrade... And All That Goes With It

[Phil S1]

It’s winter so it must be time to take the car apart!

Since my car’s still on its original radiator I thought this winter I would treat it to a new one. I have chosen to fit Eliseparts’ standard all-alloy one in its place. I am also going to upgrade the front hoses at the same time with their silicon versions.

It’s the first time I have ever removed the front clam but I’m pleased to say it came off without too much trouble. There were the usual one or two corroded fasteners in the sill but the fact the clam holes were slotted at these positions meant it wasn’t really an issue. I have already cut off the heads of the seized bolts, knocked the nut and remainder of the bolt down into the sill and then retrieved them through the hole made accessible by removal of the coin trays. I intend to replace them with aluminium rivnuts. (More info and photos on this in a later reply).

I didn’t take many photos early on, much of this has been covered before anyway, but I thought I would post up a few showing where I’m up to and the things I’ve found along the way.

Besides the radiator, other items already addressed, or on the 'to do list' are:- door hinges, battery, clutch master cylinder to reservoir return hose, brake pipe corrosion, fan and heater matrix assembly and tow post.

 

Like Martin has done previously, I will endeavour to keep editing this first post and add more photos and details as I go.

Well, it seems I have reached the limit for number of photos within one post so I will have to continue the story in later replies to this topic.

 

 

The Door Hinges

 

One of the first jobs I looked at with the clam off were the door hinges. The hinge spring plates were a bit rusty so I cleaned them up and gave them a fresh coat of paint. The driver’s door had dropped a little too so I was able to adjust that by loosening the 4 main socket head bolts that hold the hinge to the pillar.

One of the issues hinges suffer from is wear of the aluminium part of the hinge caused by the action of the hinge spring plates. My driver’s side has worn a bit of a groove over time, as you can see in the photo, but I decided to just clean it all up and regrease it for the time being....probably:-

 

There have been various fixes posted on seloc for this, ranging from milling out the worn section and fitting a new insert, using a roller arrangement on the remaining unworn sections and most recently by bonding a 0.50mm thick stainless sheet over the worn area to reinstate the original profile. If the aluminium isn’t too worn it looks like there may also be the possibility of fitting the plastic ‘protector’ that is used on the S2, something I was never aware even existed:-

http://forums.seloc.org/viewthread.php?tid=384917

 

The passenger side had virtually no visible wear:-

 

 

The Battery

 

Although my battery is permanently plugged in to a battery conditioner it died in the middle of all this. I can’t complain though, I think it was probably the original battery, I’ve certainly never changed it in the last 11 years at least. I got what I reckon was a good price on a Bosch S4 with 4 year warranty at £38.99 including delivery from Carparts4less. Something to be wary of with sites such as Carparts4less and Eurocarparts is they have a habit of listing the wrong parts when you search using your car registration. (065 and 075 in this case). For S1 batteries make sure you look specifically for an 063 size. The other crucial thing with an S1 battery is to make sure it has a handle:-

 

When I connected the battery back up I found the cause of my old one going totally flat. Somehow I had inadvertently switched the sidelights on .  In my defence though, this wasn’t immediately obvious at the time due to the front clam and lights not being on the car 

 

 

The Radiator

 

Back to the job in hand. Once I had drained the coolant and removed the radiator I could see that it was on borrowed time. There was evidence of leaking around the crimped joints between the core and header tanks:-

 

 

The fan has never given me any trouble but I’ll give it a once over whilst it’s removed and I intend to clean up and repaint the existing fan attachment brackets.

Brackets are now repainted with POR-15 so I've assembled the fan onto the new radiator with new stainless fasteners:-

 

Continued in a later reply....

 

 

The Clutch Master Cylinder to Reservoir Return Hose

 

Something else I noticed was that clutch master cylinder to reservoir return hose was moist with brake fluid. I forgot to take a photo at the time so this is the piece of hose after I had wiped it dry (the nobbly bit with the rusty clips at either end):-

 

An easy enough fix I thought, but turns out to be not a particularly cheap one. It seems that off the shelf brake hose isn’t suitable for a couple of reasons, firstly the fittings at either end are of different diameters and secondly and more significantly because off the shelf hose also kinks with such a tight bend radius. An OE part it is then. I’ve recently placed an order with DeRoure….£49.98 with delivery! I'm assuming it's an upgraded version, braided in platinum perhaps. I'll let you know when it arrives. 

 

The hose arrived promptly from DeRoure today, not much to look at although you can see the holes at either end are of different sizes (I can also confirm that no exotic materials were used in the manufacture of this part) 

 

Hose now fitted, I was able to reuse the existing clips after a bit of a clean up although the one at the reservoir end was only just large enough for the new pipe:-

 

 

The Brake Pipe

 

Once the radiator was out of the way I could get a better look at the passenger side front brake pipe. It was showing signs of corrosion, primarily around the clipping points. Also, just out of shot to the left of these two photos, the pipe was hard up against the chassis cross member, with evidence of some fretting having taken place. :-

 

 

I was alerted to the corrosion issue by threads I have read previously on Seloc, one in particular was so bad the brakes failed during the car’s MOT test. The corrosion on mine was nothing like as bad but since I was going to be draining the brake fluid to fix the return hose I thought I should address this at the same time. Once removed I managed to measure the length by inserting a piece of electrical wire through the pipe. Exactly 76cm. I’ve not got a brake flaring kit so I ordered a replacement length of Cupro-Nickel pipe, complete with end fittings, from Brakepipes2go for just under £9 delivered. It arrived yesterday:-

 

All I have to do now is make the new one look like the old one, I've never tried this before so we'll have to see how it goes 

Well, it wasn't too bad as it turned out. I carefully straightened out the new pipe and then starting at one end I very carefully bent the new pipe to match the original one. I used my trolley jack handle clamped in my workbench as a former to bend the pipe around, it seemed to be about the right diameter:-

 

I then fitted it to the car, it just needed a few minor tweaks to make sure the pipe wasn't touching anywhere:-

I decided not to wrap the pipe with tape where it fitted into the clips as I thought it would be likely to trap moisture and perhaps speed up the onset of any future corrosion.

 

 

The Fan and Heater Matrix Assembly

 

As you can see from the photos, the fan and heater matrix assembly was looking a bit shabby, plus the outlet duct had come adrift:-

 

The motor had also recently developed a very slight squeak, noticeable when on the lowest speed setting. I had all this assembly out years ago in order to replace a leaking heater matrix, so I already knew what to expect…....backache! Trying to slide the assembly to where the battery usually sits and then lift it up, whilst simultaneously avoiding the wiring harness and everything else, can be challenging 

 

Once out there are just 2 nyloc nuts to undo to separate the fan assembly from the matrix. The fan is held on the motor spindle by a circlip, with that removed and the 3 rivets drilled out, the motor and housing were free:-

 

 

 

The housing itself is pretty rusty and in need of a good clean up and repaint. Some of this was self-inflicted since I have previously had brake fluid overspill from the reservoir when bleeding the brakes. It is currently sitting in a bucket containing 6 litres of vinegar, which looks to be doing the trick.

The motor looks to be pretty much a sealed unit but a bit of oil on the spindle seems to have freed it up and hopefully removed the squeak.

 

 

With everything now out of the way I gave the chassis and crash structure a bit of a clean up:-

 

 

After five or so days in the vinegar, with a bit of wire brushing each evening, the ducting was about as clean as it was going to get. I know people have used aquarium heaters to warm the vinegar which may give a better overall result but I was happy with the outcome:-

 

I coated it with some Hammerite KuRust that I had, to tackle any remaining rust patches before finally paint it, along with the various other brackets, with POR-15:-

 

 

I then rivetted the motor back to the housing, refitted the centrifugal fan and screwed the ring back in place:-

 

Continued in a later reply...

[Dr H]

Looks like you caught it just in time!

[Martin R]

Phil, good work. It might be worth looking at the heater assembly whilst you are in there?

 

Edit, I have a load of ally rivnuts and an insertion tool. You are welcome to use what you need? PM me an address if you need either?

[Phil S1]

Thanks for the offer Martin, I've already picked up a cheap rivnut tool so hopefully that should do the trick 

The heater assembly is on my list, the matrix itself is good but the fan duct could do with a repaint.

 

(First post now updated with brake pipe info)

[kayj_prod]

Thinking I should go back and check mine... you might remember I changed my rad and heater matrix before Chatsworth.  I didn't notice any corrosion or leaks, but I find it easy to overlook things when I'm focussed on one specific repair.  The brake pipe clips look like they could cause the same issue on all cars of a similar age.

[Martin R]

Interesting Phil. What are the brake pipe clips made out of? I presume its dissimilar metal corrosion? If it is a bit of black tape or similar between the 2 may prevent it happening again?

[Phil S1]

Yes Keith, as you say, our cars are getting to that time of life where things of this nature are going to start cropping up. I'll be having a good look at all the brake pipes on mine whilst the car's in bits.  From what I've read on Seloc it seems the rears are also prone to going in the region of the fuel tank, I may need to remove the shear panel to check. Here's links to 2 of the Seloc posts, they're pretty severe cases:-

 

http://forums.seloc.org/viewthread.php?tid=388702&page=1

 

http://forums.seloc.org/viewthread.php?tid=388108

 

Pretty sure the clips are only plastic Martin, I can only assume they either trap water and/or maybe fret slightly too. Do S2's have a similar clipping arrangement?

 

 

[kayj_prod]

Well I know they didn't look anything like that example- I might not be that good a mechanic, but I would certainly have noticed that much corrosion... And would have known to address it! Still, worth me having a closer inspection just to see if I missed anything not immediately visible.

[Martin R]

Phil, i cant remember. I will have a look when i stop swearing at getting the gearbox back in mine.

[Phil S1]

The return hose from clutch master cylinder to reservoir arrived from DeRoure today....photo now added.

 

Heater matrix photos added too 

[Phil S1]

Got a few more jobs done yesterday and today,... I've painted the heater fan duct, fitted the radiator fan to the new radiator, fitted the clutch return hose and bent the new brake pipe to match the old one and refitted that too 

(First post updated with photos).

[Martin R]

Phil, what would we do without POR 15. I have been touching up wishbones today with it          Nice work as ever.

[Phil S1]

Thanks Martin, I still had one or two tins of POR-15 and chassis black left over from my suspension refresh. The wishbones have held up really well over the last 4 years, just some minor touching up may be required as you say 

I've come down with man flu at the moment so progress on the radiator front has somewhat diminished 

[Phil S1]

I seem to have reached the limit now for number of photos within my first post so I will continue the story here...

 

 

 

The Fan and Heater Matrix Assembly continued

 

Before assembling the fan back to the heater matrix housing I first needed to make a small repair. The plastic housing had cracked in 2 places, from the rivet holes:-

 

I used some sheet aluminium I had lying around to make up a couple of L-shaped brackets and then bonded them to the inside of the housing using some Tiger Seal adhesive (the photo shows the brackets placed on the outside prior to me bonding them in place):-

 

 

Once dry, I was then able to re-drill the rivet holes through the aluminium and then rivet the brackets back in place:-

 

The neoprene seal between the fan and heater matrix housings was completely shot so I replaced it with 15mm x 6mm adhesive-backed neoprene:-

 

It took a bit of effort to compress the new seal on assembly so in hindsight 5mm may have been a better choice:-

 

 

The assembly was now ready to fit back in the car. First of all you need to manoeuvre the assembly into place, starting from the battery side, lowering it down past the wiring loom and then sliding it across to the drivers side, ready for bolting in position. This is only a matter of 4 bolts, the holes for which you can just make out in the above photo...2 holes at the bottom left, on the fan housing, 1 slotted hole through the angle bracket on the right and 1 hole, top left in the photo, within the outlet duct. For no real reason I had left the bolt in the outlet duct until last. As I was trying to fit it I said to myself "be careful not to drop it inside the duct" which of course I immediately did! There was no way of retrieving it without removing the entire assembly. So, once I had done that and found myself back at the same point I this time inserted some rag into the duct, just in case. Of course, I didn't drop it this time though! Once bolted in place I was then able to reconnect the heater hoses and the aluminium heater duct, after giving it a bit of a clean of course:-

 

 

 

The Radiator continued

 

The radiator assembly is now bolted back in place, again using new stainless fasteners, and plumbed in using the new silicon hoses:-

 

 

[kayj_prod]

You make sliding the heater assembly back so easy Phil!  I found it a complete PITA... and I know which bolt you dropped into the duct as I did exactly the same thing but... I managed to slide it out using a flexible telescopic magnet thing I never thought I'd have a use for! 

 

What did you use to clean up your flexible duct?  Mine still looks grubby.