Thread: Aluminium Radiators Suck!

Yes, I’ve been advised re the performance of Alloy radiators and all 3 have failed within a year and a half. The isolated frame recommended seems to be the way to go if I keep it if reparable.👍

Originally Posted by Oberon 110

Years ago a bloke who builds/tinkers lots of aussie muscle and weird us imports (50's - 70's) told me alloy radiators are garbage - only any good in sport applications where they're swapped out every hundred hours or so at most. I though that alloy was less thermally conductive than steel so not sure what the advantage is other than cost and weight. I suppose that's not much help, other than to say that maybe a steel rad is the go. Hope you find a solution that lasts

Originally Posted by Baytown

Thanks for the great reply Dave.
I’ll mention this to my mechanic and see what they think, or if they can recommend a place in Tassie to look at the radiator, and perhaps review the fix as you’ve suggested. I’ll post back here with what solution we take on.👍

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

What Mike says.. make box ends so the rad just sits in there

if you cant get this to work, you could always try doublemounting the mounting bracket, one rubber block to the radiator and a set to the body.

Ken, can you follow up your fix once you land on it. I'm doing an LS conversion and radiator choice is a 'yet to be decided'. I run flexy long travel suspension so i foresee similar problems you are encountering.

Originally Posted by Baytown

.....

As such, with recognition that I’m running a 6.2 litre engine, I wonder if there are any ‘steel’ radiators manufactured for other large vehicles that would fit into the Defender engine bay and suitable for my heavy cooling needs?

.....

You could try(call, email, etc) Bendigo Radiators.

I used him about 20+ years ago for my XF that used to heat up on highway drives, was fine at slower town speeds.
To be more precise, I don't know him, but my mechanic(Ballarat based) got me the rad for the XF, from him.

Never used him for my RRC or Discos. He makes 4 core copper rads for Landrovers(among other cars), and his website says he runs a Disco with his rad type.
From what I recall tho, they are expensive, so don't expect a $200 radiator. IIRC they are in the $700 plus range.

I know older(tdi era) Defenders used similar radiator styles to the Disco and RRCs of the same era, just the mounts differed.
Looking at the mounts, they look different, and his 'speciality' is in D1 and RRC type radiators.

My vehicle is with Justin now and he’s working through my jobs. He has a feller who can weld the radiator so we’ll see how that pans out.
More to follow.👍

Originally Posted by MLD

Ken, can you follow up your fix once you land on it. I'm doing an LS conversion and radiator choice is a 'yet to be decided'. I run flexy long travel suspension so i foresee similar problems you are encountering.

Suggestion re radiator.
1 turn the bracket 90 degrees and reweld .
2 make a right angle bracket and bolt to the radiator.
3 drill hole in bracket on radiator and place bolt or maybe weld rod vertical with say 13mm or more distance to now horizontal bracket on body.
4 place bush between so radiator suspended via bush.
This is how a RRC radiator is mounted and seems to work.
If there is a bottom plate on the radiator place two pins in it matching holes in subframe. Fit rubber bushes so radiator is suspended by rubber bushes on sides and bottom.
My D2 alloy radiator with plastic ends (stock) lasted 20 years so there must be something good in the method .
Regards PhilipA
And the RRC never had a problem though it was a brass and copper radiator. Both cars had extensive off road .

I'm leaning towards that perhaps all alum radiators do suck...
(not so relevant for this thread as the OP's Defender is highly modded)

last model Defender TDCi (2007 - 2016, puma) can be more prone to overheating than previous models due to a number of factors including: poor maintenance, driving style, that high geared 6th speed, overloading, the fact the engine is very wide in the engine bay etc etc.

So i have looked at higher capacity all alum radiators and have seen 2 fitted and both had coolant leaks at the same spots, at the end of the fins where the cap ends join.
Both used the original Defender bottom rubber mounts and the top rubber mounts, so its as isolated as the original rad.

At the moment I replace with a std genuine radiator which I have not seen many fail.

With regards to the OP's Defender though, if you never mention it to the business that did the conversion they wont know there is a issue.

That’s the issue with ALL alloy (the plastic tanks solve a lot of issues)

With alloy tanked coolers you want a “supported” cooler pack rather than one that is hung/mounted.