Thread: Defender 300TDI Radiator Tropical Mod

interesting as was thinking of getting my raditor overhaled prior to our trip this year

Was the hole the only thing that the radiator mob did, or did they give it a quick clean out/rodding while they had the tank off?

Steve

It is a few years or more since I played with a 300Tdi, but unless my memory has deserted me, the baffle in question is in the LH tank, not the RH tank with the oil cooler.

John - thanks for the pickup. Yes, it was the tank on the passenger side of the vehicle. I've edited the post above to reflect that.

Steve - Whilst it was there, I did get it rodded again (this place wanted to remove other end tank as well to do that). I don't believe blocking/rodding was the issue though as it was rodded 18 months ago and there was no real temp change after the previous rodding.

the hole is there to stop you from cooking the engine in sub zero temperatures.

with the airflow coming through the radiator if its cold enough the coolant freezes in the cores and stops the coolant flow through the radiator,

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

the hole is there to stop you from cooking the engine in sub zero temperatures.
with the airflow coming through the radiator if its cold enough the coolant freezes in the cores and stops the coolant flow through the radiator,

I hadn't thought of that, but you are right it would be a safeguard against freezing in sub zero temperatures.
Not a likely thing to happen here in Australia, but if one was to take their Landy down the the Antarctica for a quick dash to the Pole and back !!!
I could see then what the Pommy Engineers were thinking of.

I reckon that I may be able to push a copper blanking plug with a 5 mm hole drilled in it, into that bypass -- hole, through the access in the top of the tank. I will need to measure it up to see if the blanking plug diameter fits through, a thought though.

I have one radiator that has that tropical mod done, but is yet to be fitted into a vehicle.
.

FWIW - There used to be a different spec radiator available for stinking hot countries, which ran with 5x cores too (I have one fitted to my 110). Dunno if there was a different sized bypass hole...

M

I had this pointed out to me about 2 years back this easter coming when I had the reco done on the motor in the D1

The guy at the rad shop wanted $550 to recore my rad and seal up the baffle plate he even said the same thing about the pomms WTF were they thinking sending landys here with a rad like that

He also said that this is why they build up with crud so easy as theres not enough flow through the core

Me being a bit tight on cash at the time opted for the cheaper replacement rad from the UK about $170 at the time landed and I thought that was not bad and it has a blanked baffle also alloy core and plastic tanks

This rad has been great but I keep a watchfull eye on both my temp gauges and just recently I did a run to dubbo on a 40deg day towing my box trailer running the AC was a on and off task as the temp would rise I would switch back to just the fan then run the ac for a bit then off again

So the little alloy core jobbie is not cutting the mustard so to speak when pushed so I am in the process of building an all alloy replacement with a localy sourced core and fabricated tanks I am in the process of working out the oil cooler and I am looking at using an aftermarket external cooler for mine and I am going to make some with internal coolers as well so they are a direct replacement

I will post up some more info over the next few weeks on how I am going with the rads and I will also put a post in the vendor section when I have a few available and they will be better priced than the others available