The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

GAT Radiators in Brierley Hill charged about £100 a while ago. Importantly, they know which is the correct core for the Sprint.

I think they do mail order...

East End Radiators in Glasgow recored my 1850 radiator recently for £120 including VAT. Looks better than new.

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Mike
(1969 MGB GTV8, 1977 Dolomite 1850HL, 1971 MGB roadster now all three on the road)

I had to cut the rad about a bit (the plastic side flanges get in the way) and you need to fabricate your own mounts. But it's nothing that would get in the way of returning it to stock at a later date.

The only other thing you need to do is fit a proper header tank with a feed pipe tee'd into the bottom hose. But this a good idea on a Sprint anyway, as the original expansion bottle is a criminally awful design and a known weakness!

Steve

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'73 2 door Toledo with Vauxhall Carlton 2.0 8v engine (The Carledo)
'78 Sprint Auto with Vauxhall Omega 2.2 16v engine (The Dolomega)
'72 Triumph 1500FWD in Slate Grey, Now with RWD and Carledo powertrain!

Maverick Triumph, Servicing, Repairs, Electrical, Recomissioning, MOT prep, Trackerjack brake fitting service.
Apprentice served Triumph Specialist for 50 years. PM for more info or quotes.

Something I will be doing in a bit when I do my engine swap, someone had a Saab radiator from an old kit car for a tenner. Which compared to the price of Sprint one seemed like a bargain.

How straight forward it is, is something I will find out in a couple of weeks.

I had my 1300 fwd radiator re-cored at GAT last year at something like £110, if that helps.

As a slight aside I did recently purchase an aluminium one from Alicool complete with mounted fan and switch. I had it painted satin black, it looks very nice. The owner of the company personally hand delivered it to me as I work locally to him. Lovely quality item and significantly cheaper than the competition.

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Mark

1961 Chevrolet Corvair Greenbrier Sportswagon
1980 Dolomite Sprint project using brand new shell
2009 Mazda MX5 2.0 Sport
2018 Infiniti Q30

Does this run any cooler? The guy at the recore place in Preston reckoned theirs are better, i.e. lose more heat, but the Mandy Rice-Davies quote applies.

Graham

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The 16v Slant 4 engine is more fun than the 3.5 V8, because you mostly drive it on the upslope of the torque curve.

Factory 1977 TR7 Sprint FHC VVC 697S (Now all of, but still needs putting together)
B&Y 73 Dolomite Sprint UVB 274M (kids!)
1970 Maroon 13/60 Herald Convertable (wife's fun car).

The alicool ones are a work of art to look at, but I'd welcome a comparison of capacities and fin areas to run along side the shc of brass/copper versus aluminium.

The thermostat doing its job properly should prevent overcooling of the engine. The reaction time when the thermostat opens is the important comparator, so for normal road use the aluminium option is perhaps just a bit of bling...

My experience of aluminium cored rads in more modern cars is they oxidise quicker and don't last quite as long.

There's pros and cons of an aluminium radiator.

Copper/Brass is actually a better conductor of heat but it is heavy and difficult to make into wide tubes. This means you have to make more rows of thinner tubes which can severely restrict the airflow through and the surface area of the tubes against the fins.

Aluminium is significantly lighter and can be made into larger, wider tubes giving more surface area, faster flow of water and better air flow through it. To make a copper/brass radiator more efficient it needs more rows, hence why the Sprint rad has 3 rows in a tightly packed core.

The standard radiator is in my opinion marginal when hot and the only way you can make a better radiator is to make it more efficient. Adding more rows would add too much thickness and too much weight and also restrict the flow of water so by using an aluminium radiator with larger tubes and better air flow it will be more efficient given the space available. Yes Copper/brass is a better conductor of heat however the real gains are to be made between the radiator and the air and on that score aluminium is superior due to the design and construction.

Of course if stationary then remember that with a 3 row rad you're drawing air with your fan in and over 3 rows so by the time you get to the back row the air is getting hot, again less efficient. An aluminium rad with a single row of much bigger tubes will not do this, plus if you fit an electric fan onto the rad, nicely shrouded and with an efficient blade design it will cool way better than using the viscous fan which is not terribly efficient at all.


Does mine run cooler? No idea, not been fitted. However you want o keep the temperature right i.e. to run half way up the gauge all the time not rise in hot traffic after a run. Running it too cool would severely wear your engine as it would never get up to temp.

I have not yet checked the fluid capacity of the radiator but the shape of the side tanks and size of the fins does suggest it physically holds more water than a standard one.

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Mark

1961 Chevrolet Corvair Greenbrier Sportswagon
1980 Dolomite Sprint project using brand new shell
2009 Mazda MX5 2.0 Sport
2018 Infiniti Q30

Aluminium is a better conductor than brass, but not as good as copper.

You also need to consider wall thicknesses; aluminium tube requires a thicker wall than copper. You also need to consider the surface area of the tube compared to its carrying capacity, ie 2 x pi x r versus pi x r x r together with the proximity of the fluid in the middle of the tube to the external wall. As a tube increases in diameter, significantly more fluid can flow through it with a relatively small increase of circumference, meaning more thinner tubes are better especially if no air flow exists and radiation is the sole heat loss type...

I bought an aluminium rad at great cost (over £600) for my MGB V8. From day one it leaked where the tubes entered the top tank. The manufacturer took it back and repaired it and sent it back to me. It still leaked. So they made me another brand new one. From day one that leaked as well, and by then 2 years had passed and they weren't prepared to do any more. I had two nearly new aluminium rads, both of which leaked slightly.

I took one to the guru at East End Radiators and he said (with colourful Glaswegian language) how much he hated them. He said once they have sprung a leak they cannot be repaired satisfactorily. Where the tubes enter the tank, they are simply pressed in with no sealing method, just relying on a tight fit. He tried fixing mine with a resin round the leaking tube, but he said it wouldn't last and he was right. I got rid of both of them and have a copper/brass rad in place now which does the job and doesn't leak.

If you think a Sprint engine makes a lot of heat, you should try a 3.9 litre V8 squashed into an MGB!

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Mike
(1969 MGB GTV8, 1977 Dolomite 1850HL, 1971 MGB roadster now all three on the road)

thanks Alun

Good read but the pictures are not working

Thanks Dave