Radiator Replacement - Chinese aluminium radiator

[rbgosling]

My radiator - presumably the original, so 33 years and 196,000 miles old - has been releasing its coolant into the wild at an increasingly alarming rate. So I decided to give the eBay Chinese-made aluminium version a try, that a few others have tried before. Here are a few thoughts:

• Item listing on eBay is here. If that link dies in the future, look for seller "winner racing", then search for "Aluminum Radiator for Lotus Excel Eclat Elite".
• List price is £205 currently, but there's a "Make an offer" button, and with a bit of to-and-froing I got it for £190, including delivery from China.
• Delivery was quoted at 16-32 days, mine arrived in 16 days, and not a moment too soon given the rate of coolant loss I was suffering. So I got into installing it last night, in the dark, on the gravel in my driveway. Not ideal, but at least it had stopped drizzling and it wasn't too cold. (I'm going to be so happy when I get my new, dry, well-lit, spacious garage!!)
• It was only apparent once the old radiator was off that there were a few differences:
• - The new one is clearly wider. It does fit in the space available, but only just, it took a little light persuasion to get it in. This has been noted by others going the same route.
• - I was concerned that, with the tight fit, when it expanded thermally there would be a problem. However a little mental arithmetic suggested that it would grow by about 2 mm when hot, so I think that'll be OK.
• - The fitting is different. The old radiator has a smooth metal vertical dowel near each corner. Each dowel sits in a large rubber grommet; the upper grommets then fit in a fibreglass beam that runs across the top between the light pods, the lower grommets fit in a steel beam that runs across underneath the radiator, bolted in place at each end to the underside of the light pods. Remove the steel beam and the radiator just drops out. The new radiator has threaded studs at each corner, and they are positioned a bit further apart than the dowels in the old one, so they can't just go into the same grommets. Strangely there were already holes drilled in the fibreglass beam across the top in exactly the right spots for the studs, although they were a little too small so I had to drill them up a size.
• I've simply fitted nuts on the tops of the studs to hold the radiator in place. This means that it is no longer anti-vibration rubber mounted, as the old one was, but given how tightly it is wedged in this won't make any difference.
• I haven't yet fitted the steel beam across the bottom, so I haven't checked if there are holes in the right positions for the studs. However I reckoned with the top nuts in place and the tight fit it was secure enough for me to drive to work today, so I'll fix that lower beam at the weekend.
• To undo the bolts holding the steel beam to the underside of the light pods you need to remove the light pods so you can stop the top of the bolt rotating. In my case the bolts were rusted solid, and one of the nuts was so rusty there was no profile to grip, so I just angle ground them off. Stainless might be a good idea in a location so exposed to wet!

Given the dark conditions, and the time constraints (I finished about 11:00pm last night!) I didn't take any photos of the process, sorry. I've got one comparing the two radiators, I'll post that once I've uploaded it somewhere I can access.

[bash]

The earlier cars, mines 1986, didnt have the rubber grommets or the support beams just threaded studs that go thro the upper radiator duct and thro the undertray secured by big washers and a nut.
Bash

[rbgosling]

The earlier cars, mines 1986, didnt have the rubber grommets or the support beams just threaded studs that go thro the upper radiator duct and thro the undertray secured by big washers and a nut.
Bash

Interesting - so maybe this one (that is sold as covering all Elite / Eclat / Excel) is designed to fit your year car, and that's why it required a little fettling to fit it to mine.

[bash]

If you look on page 17 of how to bore people about my rover v8 conversion theres a picture of my radiator assembly and you can see the threaded studs.
Bash

[Lotus-e-Clan]

I fitted the Chinese winner rad years ago. Now have a std recored rad fitted.
The Chinese one leaked very prematurely (1 or 2 years later) from the side tanks where the core intersects. I put it down to the very tight fit and lack of rubber suspension. Either thermal expansion or vibration (or both) caused the issue.
The winner rad is in my garage awaiting repair. But because the sTD recore has lasted much much longer since I rubber bushed it ( must be over 5 year now?) on replacement, the repair to the winner rad might never happen!
I hope yours lasts longer than mine but it seems you've experienced the same sort of fitting issues I had, so fingers crossed.

[Alan_M]

The earlier cars, mines 1986, didnt have the rubber grommets or the support beams just threaded studs that go thro the upper radiator duct and thro the undertray secured by big washers and a nut.
Bash

Interesting - so maybe this one (that is sold as covering all Elite / Eclat / Excel) is designed to fit your year car, and that's why it required a little fettling to fit it to mine.

My 87 auto also uses the threaded studs as per Bash. Maybe it was an 89 thing?

[Pete Boole]

The construction of an aluminium radiator core affects it's life expectancy as well - cores that have a "return" on the end plates tend to last longer as less heat is introduced to core tube/end plate welds when the rest of the tanks are added.

Pete

[richardw]

It looks like the radiator with the rubber mountings (A089K0147F) was introduced as late as 1991. The parts list note says ‘See S/B 1991/06’ against this item, and the rubber mounting bushes and associated brackets are all to be used with this radiator.

Cheers, Richard

[rbgosling]

It looks like the radiator with the rubber mountings (A089K0147F) was introduced as late as 1991. The parts list note says ‘See S/B 1991/06’ against this item, and the rubber mounting bushes and associated brackets are all to be used with this radiator.

Cheers, Richard

Well, that might explain why my car has both sets of holes - the rubber-mounted radiator may be a replacement radiator fitted by a previous owner, but it originally had the solid-mounted one? Or maybe even they changed over while my car was coming down the line, and had to modify it to fit the radiator they had? Guess it'll remain a mystery!

[Lozza74]

Interesting. My 'winner' radiator arrived last week and ill fit it when I get the dashboard back into the car ('83 Excel).
I already noticed that the mounting studs on the new radiator are M10, but the ones on my current radiator are M8 or smaller (from memory).
I have not offered the two up alongside each other yet to see if the studs are in the same places, but I assume they are.

the comments about it being a tight fit are interesting. I suspect my current radiator leak is where the tank is attached to the core, and possibly related to it being a fairly tight fit and so subject to being squeezed/flexed as the car moves slightly. I think I may see if its possible to make some clearance somewhere.
I also plan on rubber mounting the new radiator with some flexible top hat type bushes, although I need to find some first.

[Pete Boole]

I'm using MG F rubber rad mounts - might be worth taking a look.

Pete

[barker_001]

It looks like the radiator with the rubber mountings (A089K0147F) was introduced as late as 1991. The parts list note says ‘See S/B 1991/06’ against this item, and the rubber mounting bushes and associated brackets are all to be used with this radiator.

Cheers, Richard

Well, that might explain why my car has both sets of holes - the rubber-mounted radiator may be a replacement radiator fitted by a previous owner, but it originally had the solid-mounted one? Or maybe even they changed over while my car was coming down the line, and had to modify it to fit the radiator they had? Guess it'll remain a mystery!

My August 1990 car had a solid mounted radiator and no larger holes for the rubber mounts. I've now mounted the rad using rubber washers and slightly loose nyloc nuts to give the same effect. I had no luck at all with the Winner radiator (albeit an early one), couldn't get it to fit at all. So I had my 3 core original recored and it has been fine since. Ooops, I've said it now...

[rbgosling]

Some photos:

New radiator as it arrived:


Old and new radiators showing the size difference:


Views from underneath, before I put the lower beam on:




And now with the lower beam on (but not the undertray):

[Lozza74]

As I said above I have also bought a 'winner' radiator recently, and got around to fitting it last weekend. I have an early (1983) Excel, so thought I would note here some of the differences and pain points to fitting.

In the early Excel the radiator is mounted with 2 threaded studs through the radiator duct at the top, and 2 stubs through the undertray. There is no lower beam.
Both the top and bottom parts of the duct have raised portions moulded into them close to the radiator for strength.

As Richard has said, the winner radiator is slightly different from the original. It has M10 studs, whereas my original were M6. It is also about 5mm wider, and finally is 50mm thick, whereas my original was 35mm thick.
This extra depth should make it cool better, but also add a lot of pain to its fitting.

The mounting holes in both the upper and lower duct panels are positioned close to the strengthening ribs, which means that if they were to be reused the radiator does not fit flush to the duct, and so sits lower than wanted.
To work around this I re-sited the upper holes backwards, towards the engine, this allowed the radiator to sit as high as possible. However moving the holes in the lower panel similarly back meant that the radiator fans wanted to be in the same place as the oil cooler and its hoses. To avoid this I moved them forwards to in front of the strengthening rib so the radiator was slightly angled top to bottom. This was possible as I also decided to use rubber 'top hat' mounts, and there is some flexibility in them.

The other issue is the extra 5mm width - this was too much for my radiator duct. This was easier to resolve, I dropped the duct out of the car and trimmed a few mm off the car body alongside the wooden crash panels. This allowed the duct to flex outwards a little. I then re-drilled the mounting holes to fix it in this new, wider position.

All in all this has got the new radiator into the car, but to be honest I think it is far from ideal. The extra thickness of the winner radiator over the original makes fitting it far from simple.

Richard

[rbgosling]

Thanks for sharing your experience Richard, a useful further contribution to the sum of knowledge on these things.

With mine it seems to be so far so good - I did find myself topping up the coolant after the first few outings, which had me worried, but now it seems to be holding OK so I guess it was just various pockets of trapped air working their way around to the tank after the coolant was all drained.