Hello people,
I recently started looking around for a full aluminium radiator, as anyone else who has looked will know, there's not a great deal of choice.
Local radiator fabricator quoted $1460, bit rich for my blood, and the desert coolers have a great reputation for quality but with postage I was still quoted between $900 and $1000, which still seems a lot for a car that originally cost $3000.
I kept looking and found an option from a company called Direnza, online reviews were mixed in the extreme, everything from "everything they make is rubbish " to "excellent product " so in the end I got in touch with them, in the UK, including postage, $427 to my door, so I decided to take a punt.
Arrived on the day they said it would, postage had dented a couple of brackets (bit of negotiation got a $45 refund for the trouble and they did offer to have it collected and replaced at their cost ).I've been a metalworker for over 30 years so I gave it the once over when I unpacked. The welding wasn't the best I've ever seen, but it was far from being bad either, perfectly acceptable, it's a full aluminium fabrication with a twin core that is 55mm thick as opposed to the standard 42, there should be a picture of the two together for comparison.
Fitting was easy, the side brackets are a bit random so I just bent them open a bit with a screw driver and pushed them back around the fixing points once it was in. Only one of the lower fixing points lined up with the hole, and they were tapped out to m6 rather than the standard m8, but otherwise a straight swap.
Since it's been fitted we've had nothing but rain so I have no idea if it has reduced the operating temperature, but I will keep you posted.
Anyone looking for a budget aluminium radiator for the P38 should give these a look if my experience is typical.
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