Aluminum Radiators and cooling issues.
A lot of us have been in the same boat. Leaky original radiators, damaged cores, poor cooling.
Taking your old radiator to a radiator shop, if you even have one in town, proves to be a disappointment, I was quoted $1200 for a core replacement. And that’s not worth it.
What’s the alternative? A repop radiator from one of the parts places, often prove to be very light in materials, and just not performing the way the original ones do. Another alternative is an aluminum 3 core radiator.
The same radiator found at so many different vendors.
Few years ago, I was in the same boat. Flushed my cooling system with CRC Radiator rust-be-gone, and a week later it was leaking. Guess the rust held it together…
One of the parts places was selling aluminum radiators, widely varying in prices, but the majority seem to be made by Champion Cooling Systems, which appears to be a Spal company.
The radiator is nicely made, and fits nicely. The cap has a cool logo with finish flags on it, which just about fell off on its own, revealing Chinese markings. Oh well.
One of the biggest problems with these radiators, which seem relatively well made, is that they have no shroud. The vendor assured me that this wasn’t a problem, all his customers ran no shrouds, and none had issues. Alternatively, he sold me a steel shroud, which he said I could Tek-screw into the side of the core, as long as I used short enough screws.
Sure enough, once installed - without shroud, I quickly ran into overheating issues.
I played with some different flex fan designs, and even an electric one with a 190F Thermo switch, but ended up away from that again. Something about that electric fan noise that just doesn’t fit with a vintage jeep and it’s quiet motor.
Running Tek screws into the side of my new radiator didn’t excite me at all, a steel shroud on an aluminum radiator can lead to all sorts of galvanic corrosion issues. Besides, the risk of hitting a tube inside was ever present.
Ultimately, I ended up finding a 6 bladed fan, of almost the exact same design as the stock 4 bladed one, and modifying a spacer to bring it 2” closer to the radiator. The L134 waterpump snout is an odd size compared to the pilot holes found in modern fans, so it requires some machinework.
6 Bladed fan, same diameter and blade design and dimensions as the original 2a fans.
It now sits a bit over an inch away from the radiator, and is working perfectly. On the many trips through the mountains and Florida, I’ve had absolutely zero overheating issues. Even left to idle for extended periods of time in the baking Florida sun proved to be fine. Never saw temps over 195F.
1” Spacer for Shrouded radiator applications
How does a 6 bladed fan perform compared to a 4 bladed one, with all things being equal? Asking our good friends at ChatGPT for some math help, we learn that we can see the following increases in air moved:
At 700 RPM Idle, it calculates 35-40%, 1500 RPM 28-30%, and 2500 RPM 24-25%.
Those numbers are right where you want them, the biggest increases at lower RPM ranges.
These fans and adapters will soon be for sale on flatfenderparts.com, stay tuned!
