Four blade fan?

[Howard Wright]

Hi All

Thanks for all the answers.  It seems it is a fairly common problem with older period cores.  Looking at the core there is much less transfer area for heat to dissipate than in a modern core.  I spent a happy hour yesterday poking a bottle brush through each hole and quite a lot of dust came out!

I did look at an electric fan but the power consumption (120Watt that’s 20Amps) of the 6Volt one that came up on a Google search seems very high and would strain the cabling if not the dynamo!

I might try a four blade fan (which might sap as much power as an electric fan but won’t strain the wiring or dynamo).  I’ll let you know how I get on.

Thanks again

Howard

[Howard Wright]

Quick preliminary follow up.

I took the radiator off and flushed it through with a very weak hydrochloride acid solution. Plenty more flushing and then installed the four blade fan. It draws a lot more air through the radiator and into the engine bay. After idling for a quarter of an hour the gauge temperature was around 85 degrees and holding steady. It’s pouring down here at the moment and we have family staying so I’m not venturing out just yet.

Howard

[Reckless Rat]

Hopefully that will do the trick, Howard. The downside is that winter warm up will be longer but you can always either blank off the radiator or take the fan belt off when it gets cold. Since going 4 bkade on the RP, I have never had overheating problems here in France despite doing some serious hill climbing in 30+ degree temps. Fingers crossed, eh?

[Howard Wright]

Hi Bruce

Thanks.  We did a longer run today and although the car still seems to be running hot (95 degrees) it was less prone to boil on the couple of steep bits we tried.  It did get close to boiling when the ignition started to play up and we stuttered up a 1 in 5. I think the problem was a loose connection or dirty contact in the SM5 switch box. Waggling the ignition switch caused the ignition light to go on and off  . A job for tomorrow!

Cheers

Howard

[Ruairidh Dunford]

The only time I have ever been concerned about the temperature of my engine was the time I fitted a gauge, I soon disconnected it.

Similarly, I have only A7 fitted with a petrol gauge - it is the car that I run out of fuel in the most.

[Alan]

That’s so true, R. My Ulster has a switch on the electronic rev counter. Whenever I need to do anything serious with it I switch the thing off.

[andrew34ruby]

The only time I have ever been concerned about the temperature of my engine was the time I fitted a gauge.....

This just cracked me up!!!!!!!!!!! it is so true.

[Peter Naulls]

I share Ruairidh's thoughts. When I took over our Ruby from my father he had fitted a temperature gauge which showed that it ran between 90 and 100 degrees all the time, though it never boiled. Eventually I grew tired of worrying about it (and irritated by the gauge which rattled) so I removed it. I've barely given it a thought since!

[Dave Mann]

It's all very well getting the air into the radiator, it's getting it out of the engine bay which can be a problem. Sat at traffic lights in our RN my arm was hanging out the drivers window in a seriously hot blast of arm exiting the bonnet louvers whilst under way the cab gets quite hot, even in winter, with all the hot air coming in round the gearbox.

[Ruairidh Dunford]

We took the bonnet off the Pearl on the Stelvio, worked a treat.