Just thought you might be interested in the results of my effort to improve
cooling on my 1500 midget. I (stop reading concours guys & gals, delete delete
delete!) took off the rubber front bumper. Mounted a thermo. controlled
electric fan on rad. Taking off the bumper left two large holes in the fenders
where supports had been. I mounted an oil cooler behind one (left side) and an
old trans cooler behind the other, which I attached to the heater taps. Put
expanded steel grills over these and the main rad. hole. I think it looks kind
of cool this way, like a baby cobra or something, but it's sure not
authentic. I blocked off the hole that used to lead to the heater tube so all
the grill
air would go through the main rad. To make some concession to the needs of
handling and crash safety I welded a piece of box section tubing across the
frame rails behind the new grill I made to tie the frame rails together.
The car runs cool now. About 160 degrees F on the road, it climbs fast when
climbing a hill or in traffic, but the cool running temp allowed me to set my
elect. fan controller pretty low (maybe 175) so I can attack that rise quickly
without having the fan come on when I'm going down the road through plenty of
air. All in all I'd call it a big success because my motor is way built and
would go nuclear with a stock cooling system, though it's worth pointing out
that now both my oil AND cooling systems are represented in the wheelwells,
where they could be victims of traumatic impacts and catastrophic fluid losses.
It would probably be wise to do what I didn't, and use braided lines. But of
course half the fun for me is making stuff out of crap that's around (had to
dig around in my brother's yard awhile to find the trans cooler I knew he's
still have from our parent's 78 Chrysler Cordoba).
Mark M.
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