In 28 years of working on British cars, about 6 or seven times I have come
across radiators that were perfectly clean and in good physical condition
yet would not keep their car cool. One was a Morris Minor, another a Jag E
Type that had a recent US recore, and the others were all Morgans. The
radiators were mostly over 15 years old, one was a propane +8. After making
a test setup where we can measure the temperature in the top and bottom
radiator hoses simulaneously while driving down the road at 60 or 70 miles
per hour, we have come to the conclusion that situations exist where
radiator loss the ability to conduct heat from the water passing through
them out to the fins and then to the air. I believe that something occurs
to the bond between the tube and the fins, possibly corrossion?, that stops
the transfer of heat. None of the radiator core manufacturers aparently have
a test bench where they can measure the heat rejection of a radiator in BTUs
vs air and water flow. Or if they do, they aren"t telling! Morris Owen
once told me that a Morgan radiator must drop the temperature at least 10
degrees at 60 mph or else it won't keep the car cool . A typical japanese
care has a 20 degree drop! The Jag E Type rad that wasn't working only
dropped the temp 3 degrees, the new core that we put in dropped it 12
degrees under the same circomstances and lowered the running temp of the car
from 212 to under 185. This was on a 85 degree day driving at 65 mph
over highway 17 from Santa Cruz to San Jose. The only way to test for this
kind of a problem with certanty is by measuring the water temperature, while
driving at speed. Maybe it could also be done on a chassis dyno, but you
would have to have a very good cooling fan system. It sounds to me that many
of the Morgan " overheating " problems may be based on this type of a
situation. This of course presupposes that all of the basics like bad head
gaskets, plugged radiators, stuck thermostats, defective water pumps, etc.
have been eliminated. We normally recomend installing the grill to
radiator duct that sell have developed along with sealling the rest or the
spaces between the radiator and the nose of the car to insure that the
maximum amount of air goes THROUGH the radiator and not around it.
Regards, Greg Solow
----- Original Message -----
From: John T. Blair <jblair@exis.net>
To: <morgans@autox.team.net>
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 1999 4:09 PM
Subject: Re: Re: An Alternative to Electric Fan?
> At 05:27 PM 8/5/99 EDT, Rick Rader wrote:
>
> >Anyone have sources for a 4 blade fan for Morgan 4/4's (with 1500 Cortina
> >engines).. Mine has a two blade fan (unless there's a missing matched
> >blade). I have an electric fan but would like to upgrade the standard
fan.
>
> Rick,
>
> My 65 4/4 has a 4 bladed fan. It is made up of 2 pieces, apparently 2
of
> 2 bladed pieces. And I DO HAVE COOLING PROBLEMS. Over 75 deg air, the
car
> over heats. I've had the radiator "rodded" when I did the restoration.
> There are several things that I probably should do to get her to run
cooler,
> but I also over heat above 75 deg.
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> >
> John T. Blair WA4OHZ email: jblair@exis.net
> Va. Beach, Va Phone: (757) 495-8229
>
> 48 TR1800 65 Morgan 4/4 Series V (B1109)
> 71 Saab Sonett III (71500840) 75 Bricklin SV1 (0887) 77 Spitfire
>
> Morgan: www.team.net/www/morgan
> Bricklin: www.bricklin.org
>
>
>
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