> Or maybe my question should be........ does the TR3 have
> inherent cooling
> problems that could be helped by an aluminum radiator that
> handles hear
> "better"?
That has been a much debated topic over the years. The conventional wisdom is
that "All British cars overheat", and there may be
some small truth to that. Lots of folks do have cooling problems, but I think
it is less due to any inherent shortcoming and more
due to things like the cars being old, rarely driven, poorly understood and
indifferently maintained.
I'm not a big fan of P.J. O'Rourke, but I did enjoy his book "Drive like
Crazy", mostly because the story centers around a
cross-country trip in a 56 Buick. With that litany of mechanical problems
(including persistent overheating), he could just as
easily been driving a TR3! But unlike the Buick, with a TR3 no one will ever
tell you "That thing will run forever". The
difference is in the perception, not the facts.
"Back when", I drove an entire Indiana summer in a decrepit TR3A that had no
cooling fan at all! Original radiator (from another
TR3A), no cardboard air duct (didn't know it was supposed to have one), and
probably the original grille. It actually had no
cooling problems at all while driving at speed, and I limped around town by
simply shutting the engine off every chance I got. It
seemed clear to me that the only issue was lack of airflow through the radiator
(under certain conditions), not anything to do with
radiator size, thermostat type and so on.
Of course, since then, I've been using radiators without a crank hole, so they
do work better than the original. But I'd have to
say that my current TR3 continues the trend, where it shows no signs of any
lack of cooling under any circumstances. With a 185
modern thermostat (no sleeve), the needle never goes above the '5' in 185
(which is where the electric fan kicks in). Even then,
the fan runs for only 30-40 seconds before turning off again. The gauge hardly
moves, but obviously the water coming back from the
radiator has gone below the 190F setpoint for the fan thermostat.
Randall
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