Overheating Sorted....I Hope

[ants]

For quite some time I've had some overheating issues when in traffic. As soon as the car starts moving the temp starts to come down. Always knew the cause was airflow but the problem I had was that when I built the car I used a crossflow radiator from an XB Falcon and with it mounted hard up against the radiator support panel I only had 85mm between the radiator and water pump. The only slim fan I could find at the time wasn't big enough A few months ago 123abc had a post with similar issues and hybrid suggested FG single fan and husky mentioned Flowkooler water pumps. So over the last month or so I got motivated to do something.
Step 1 was getting a water pump. Got it through Summit ebay store, same purchase price as their webstore but postage was cheaper through ebay. The pump starts as a GMB pump so the quality should be ok and it appears they remove the pressed metal impeller and fit their own design CNC machined impeller.



Next was removing the old fan and shroud





And then trim the FG fan to suit the radiator



Even with moving the lower radiator mounts as far forward so as they were hard up against the lower brace on the radiator support panel I still didn't have enough room to clear the water pump. Needed at least another 10mm. At one point I considered button head screws and cutting a bit off the centre shaft but that wouldn't be enough and wouldn't work unless I elongated the engine and gearbox mounts and moved the engine back a little. That would have been easy enough but didn't know what knock on effect it might create, so out came the air hacksaw and I cut away the side and top recesses of the radiator support angled the top of the radiator foward and redid the top mounts.





Now it's wait till summer and hope it's enough to fix the issue.

[123abc]

it worked for me and i run it on half speed with a adj thermostat

[123abc]

the other thing i did was to have the rad rodded i thought it flowed ok but a lot of veins were blocked

[ants]

The radiator was new 12 months ago and I fitted a filter at the same time so I don't expect any problems in that area.
In the few warm days I've had so far it appears to be fine, in the past in traffic it would get up to 3/4 and stay there on a warm day and keep climbing on a hot day. Now it gets to 3/4 then comes down to 1/2 when the fan cuts in then up & down as the fan cycles on & off. It also recovers back to normal temp quicker when I get out of the traffic.
So all the signs are good, just have to wait for some real summer weather to put it to the acid test.