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The cooling system isn't a great design and sadly it seems to be an area that trips up British car makers over and over again. My father has an MGF, another car whose cooling system you have to watch like a hawk. Along other cars with the larger K-series lumps. The Stag and the Imp are two others that come to mind.
Having fought to keep the system on my Sprint engine sealed, I don't have much confidence in the slant cooling system design. You have the transfer pipe, which leaks if not seated correctly or the O-rings are tired. The inlet manifold coolant inlet to the head seems like a bad design, especially when you look at the bolt pattern around it. No-way to apply clamping forces to the bottom if it isn't seated properly. I could only fix that by having it skimmed.
The slightest air leak seems to lead to coolant in the expansion bottle and the thermostat housing running dry. If you're really unlucky the sender runs dry and you don't know you have a problem.
I think I am going to go the route of fitting a header tank. I just don't have very much faith in the design.
Indeed the slant 4 engine was full of niggles, due to the fact, in the main, that BL staff preferred to strike than develop their engines. It's a shame as they were only a few tweaks (IMHO) from making a great engine.
That said, with my Dollies I had no coolant issues. I can only put that down to regular checks and serving, allied to coolant made up of good quality antifreeze and distilled water -- or perhaps I was just lucky. But given I had several I'd like to think it was the former, but I can't prove that...
For all their faults they are still worth the effort, especially if you only use it with limited mileage.
I will be looking at throwing a ton of money to try and improve the engine of my next Dolly: Having hardened valves to take unleaded; have the head ported to improve the flow of water and air; upgrade the radiator; add a header tank....
However, this won't happen overnight, for obvious reasons.