Cooling system

Next up, Rad and fan fitting, plus pipe work.

Again this part of the build went fairly easy, first jon was fit the upper rad mounts, these needed to be drilled and rivited, first job was to shorten some dome head stainless steel bolts to fit into the radiator mounts, approx 2 at 12mm and 2 at 16mm, the rad was then fitted up to the 2 lower brackets which are part of the chassis, this then gave me a natural sitting position for the rad meaning i could then place on the top monts and get them rivited into position. once i was happy with its position, i could then fit the fan, the lower fixings needed 2 M6 rivnuts fitted into the chassis, and i then made up some 14mm nylon spacers to place behind them, the top fan mount could then drilled and rivited in the same way as the radiator mounts. now i offered the raditor back up and found that the fan cowling was in contact with the rad, to get round this i used a sharp stanley knife blade to cut away the pastic from the front of the cowling, taking away about 12 mm of plastic meaning that i now had plenty of room but still having the fan close enough to the rad.

Next was to connect up the pipe work, the rubber hoses bends for this are cut out of 1 pipe supplied by westfield, for the top hose connection you have one 45 degree for the connection to the radiator, and a 90 degree bend forom the outlet of the engine, now on trial fitting up these, i found a slight problem, the outlet on an 1800cc engine faces the other way to a 1600cc meaning that the 90 degree bend was not tight enough, as the angle is more like 135 degrees, this meant that as i connected every thing up, the bend just kinked in half and squashed, so to get round this a 135 degree bend in red was ordered from SFS silicone hoses, with a bit of trimming fitted perfectly, now i also had to shorten the ally pipe that connects these 2 hoses and re-swage the end.

the bottom outlet on the rad is in a great position which puts it pratically in line with the lower part of the chassis, now westfield supply a S bend silicone hose, but no matter what you do this will still come into contact with the chassis, to get round this problem i have got my hands on some sticky backed rubber to attach to the chassis rail and hopefully this shouldnt wear through the lower pipe.