Soldering copper radiator tank

I was going to have a go at soldering it after work today, but I started looking at things a bit more and convinced myself that removing it entirely wouldn't be that bad. I got the impression from the workshop manual that the grille panel needed to come off, and that would indeed be a pain.

As mentioned it's an earlier "thick" type, so I didn't have a bunch of room to play with. I found the trick was to remove the shroud and dangle it off some zip ties in situ, then reach in between the radiator and shroud to extract the fan - this was probably the trickiest bit. I probably could've removed the shroud first if I had a later style two-piece thermostat housing. Anyway, a few bolts later, and it lifted out - needed some jiggling around since it really wanted to get caught in the shroud, but it's out! Took well under an hour.

Any recommendations for old-school radiator shops in Sydney? Preferably south-west but I'll travel for quality service.

JJ Smith radiators Marrickville.

Having recently had the job of fitting a radiator to the 2A I came up with using cardboard to cover the radiator fan side when reinstalling it. This was to prevent fat hands and 🔧 spanners from damaging the radiator fins and tubes when fitting fan, just a thought.

> Having recently had the job of fitting a radiator to the 2A I came up with using cardboard to cover the radiator fan side when reinstalling it. This was to prevent fat hands and 🔧 spanners from damaging the radiator fins and tubes when fitting fan, just a thought.

That's a solid idea, definitely stealing that one - cheers.

Update time: I got it back on Friday, reinstalled it Monday night and so far so good. Thanks everyone who recommended taking it out, that was definitely the way to go. They pressure-tested it and found that the coolant release valve was leaking, properly re-soldered the top and bottom tanks with silver solder, and reinforced all of the edges of the pressing marks. Only $290. I was going to shop around but I told the bloke on the phone it was for a 1959 Land Rover and he said "the thick type or the thin type? I did one of those last week" and I knew I found the right person. Superior Radiators at Moorebank.

Anyway, one recommendation he made that I wanted to ask the audience about: he said I'd be better off running tap water with a corrosion inhibitor than actual coolant! His logic was that if I'm only running the car once a week or so, ammonia can separate out and start attacking the metals in the radiator. Now, I always thought modern coolants had corrosion inhibitors in them already - and the tap water recommendation really surprised me, I can't imagine the fluoride or calcium does it any good. Anybody got opinions on this? For the time being I've put coolant back in, but only because I had most of a bottle of pre-mix left.

I've always run Demin water with inhibitor in my vehicles here. It never gets cold enough in Perth to warrant Anti-freeze. Water has a higher specific heat and will generally give a better outcome if you don't need the freeze protection. I wouldn't run our tap water because it's almost too foul to drink un-filtered.

I do run the specified coolant at the specified mix in the D3 however, because it's a delicate petal and I don't want to tempt fate.

I'm not sure where the Ammonia would come from, but Ammonia certainly eats copper and copper based alloys.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BradC

I've always run Demin water with inhibitor in my vehicles here. It never gets cold enough in Perth to warrant Anti-freeze. Water has a higher specific heat and will generally give a better outcome if you don't need the freeze protection.

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I did a little searching after reading this, and you're dead right - that's news to me about the specific heat capacity. I'm in Sydney, so besides the vague possibility of the Blue Mountains in winter, I certainly don't need the antifreeze qualities. Demineralised water it is, cheers for pointing that out.

I had a little laser for a while. I lent it to a "mate" and he cooked it, then his diesel mechanic brother replaced the head gasket. It would cook if you used coolant, but straight water was just enough to keep it under control. I don't lend him things anymore.

I've been using tank water & 'anti-freeze' for many years without any issue in a range of older Land Rovers. Remember that 'anti-freeze' also raises the boiling point of the coolant.
The heat transfer isn't as good as water but the raised boiling point helps with some engines, it's already raised due to it being pressurised but there are other reasons to raise it further.
There was a discussion on here some years back and the suggestion was tank/demineralised water & 'water wetter', this came partly from racing applications where anti-freeze is a problem when it leaks or after an accident as it can be slippery

Mix the antifreeze in the recommended concentration to get the correct concentration of corrosion inhibitor.
You used to have to be careful with the corrosion inhibitor type, OAT type 1 could damage older cooling systems. I understand this has been resolved just don't mix different corrosion inhibitor types (OAT, HOAT, IAT......etc.)
I contacted Technical Departments at several coolant suppliers as often the inhibitor type isn't mentioned on the packaging !


Colin