Thread: RRC exploding viscofan trick

Sorry for the poor pics Shane, no space to get it in a spot to take a pic - raining outside, no space inside and poor lighting. Phone was all I had at the time.

It's a damn site heavier than the old one, and is all brass core and fin, silver soldered, core has a special tube type that is not like a normal copper/brass setup. I can't remember the name/spec of the actual brass tube, I think they call the fin type a super heavy duty louvre core or something similar. All I can tell you is that it's not the off-the-shelf replacement core. (they make a complete replacement RRC unit, and a standard recore unit section, both of which were in stock in sydney, but this core was order-only)
All I can tell you is that prices for 'proper' copper/brass radiators have more than doubled in the last 5 years...

"All I can tell you is that prices for 'proper' copper/brass radiators have more than doubled in the last 5 years."

Ain't that the truth! I just paid $1200 for a recored 3 layer copper/brass unit and that was after rejecting the choice of a 4-layer for a couple of hundred more

Originally Posted by aussiebushman

"All I can tell you is that prices for 'proper' copper/brass radiators have more than doubled in the last 5 years."

Ain't that the truth! I just paid $1200 for a recored 3 layer copper/brass unit and that was after rejecting the choice of a 4-layer for a couple of hundred more

Yes but if you buy a high quality efficient core .......... I bet its still going strong in 30years time!

Don’t ask what a recore on a radiator that keeps a 50 litre, 2000HP V16 Diesel cool - we just did one at work... You could buy a nice new small car for the same price. The cost of having the machine on hire near the coast for several years...

I'm surprised how many variations of radiators there is too. I tried to refit the radiator to my car yesterday and found the oil cooler connections were Oring type on the hoses, but flared on the radiator. I pull out the damaged radiator .... Yep, Oring type. So I unscrewed the Oring connectors from that radiator, then trashed the Flare type connectors on the "good" radiator tryng to unscrew them (the threads must have been soldered). So now to un-usable radiators. Then I remembers I had a spare radiator in one of the sheds, so I went and found that ................... no bloody oil cooler connectors ... sigh.

So 3 different radiators, I could just solder up the damaged tank on the radiator that leaks, but its core looks sus. I think I'll just take them into the local radiator place and get them to move the tank with the oil cooler over to the best radiator (and rod the core while the tanks is off).

seeya,
Shane L.

Originally Posted by Mercguy

(I didn't want to undo the trans/ps cooling lines from rad, I was pressure testing, hence somewhat disjointed sounding post)

My '86 RRC had separate coolers. There were no trans/ps cooling lines into the radiator.

My RRC fan caught before failure:

Cracked_RR_Fan.JPG

Originally Posted by aussiebushman

Unfortunately, the pulley will want to turn with the nut so you'll have to find a way to stop that. One way is to buy (expensive) or make ( a fair bit of fabrication involved) a fan spanner that fits over the small bolts.

I made one to change my L322 radiator. It was fairly simple to make. I can link the drawing for an L322 and you can mod to suit.

Well I just took the two radiators in hoping they could swap the tank with the right oil cooler fittings over to the good radiator. He took one look at the good radiator (.... well more of a 0.5 seconds glimpse ) and said "Cheap chinese piece of ****, don't waste your time with it. I can't change the tanks over as look how small the tanks are on the chinese ****.... So I asked could he rod out the damaged one and solder up the split in the tank..... "I can fix the split, but if I try to dismantle that core it'll leak everywhere... see how it's already leaking at the corners". I mentioned I had another radiator at home with no oil cooler as all. "Can I bring that in and have the tanks swapped over" .... "If they are the same, no worries".


Oh ....


"By the way, I do a lot of these Rover radiators, these pommy cars always seem to run hot in extreme weather ... they just aren't made for it. I have also never seen a rover radiator with flare type oil cooler connectors, and never seen one without an oil cooler installed, so I"m not sure where you got those radiators from". He apparently does all the land rover radiators for the repairers in ballarat. He said he could make up a quality aussie made radiator for about $750 ( which I thought was remarkably cheap).

So my guess is I have a cheap chinese radiator here that had the wrong hose connections so they changed the hoses on the car ............... and maybe a really early 200TDi radiator that didn't require an oil cooler.

Its not often I go somewhere and find someone that knows there stuff backwards and inside out. It does make a pleasant change.

seeya,
Shane L.

Adrad is the only company in australia making copper/brass cores, so it's obviously going to be one of theirs, but by the sound of it, the price of the he's quoting you is for a 3 core . The RRP on a whole replacement 3 core standard unit is about 990, so factor in whatever discount off retail he's giving you, and that's the price of the 3 core complete unit. The one I replaced was a copper/brass 3 core unit with the heat exchangers in each side tank and those had 3/8" male bspt to ½" male bspp adapters on the core. Not o-ring fittings. It looked like it had been in there for quite a few years - possibly it was the original unit, but I do not know for sure.

the 4 core 'core' is about the same cost as the replacement off-the-shelf 3 core complete standard replacement unit and the all-brass heavy duty core is almost half as much again, and has to be made to order.

so for 750 bucks you are barking mad if the core is a 4 core replacement. Even if it is the 3 core, it sounds cheap. I never had any temp issues with my RRC on the previous radiator, but the viscofan obviously was working very hard maintaining temps, and obviously that contributed to it separating from the steel centre and tearing out the steel eyelets. That was a key factor in my decision to increase the capacity and go with a super heavy duty core.

I hope that I will never have to concern myself with RRC cooling issues in the future, but I have recently given some further thought to an LT230 pto hydraulic oil pump mod which I saw on pirate 4x4 some years ago.. seems like overkill, but I have time to consider whether it's actually worth bothering with.