Woes, and heating issues! New radiator time?

[ChasR]

It was all meant to go so smoothly today! I was meant to have a green ticket (well, a photocopy ticket these days) and enjoying open top motoring in the Stag! If only!

Upon collecting my Stag it was sporting 2 deep scrathes on my arrival . From being pretty annoyed, firing up the engine soon renewed my vigour as that addictive and unique burble pleased the ears. The garage did accept it as their fault and agreed to repaint those parts.

What did not please my eyes however was the temperature gauge. It seems I have a gauge from a Dolomite in my car (although it does say Stag on it on the rear (replacement gauge changed in the past no doubt!). During the winter the car never went above halfway. When I took the car to the garage (on a warm day) I thought the gauge was getting a little warm, but I figured a full investigation could be conducted when I get the car back.

On today's journey the gauge would sit at slightly over halfway (still on the white mark/in between the E and M of the gauge) with my thermometer (well, IR gun) saying the temperature was 70 degrees on the thermostat housing and on the black part of the temperature sender.

As soon as I hit the motorway doing around 70-75MPH the gauge started to rise to almost the 3/4 mark, on the M portion now. Putting the electric fan on (I need to wire on a themistor type switch) made no real difference.

Upon coming off the dual carriageway (with the fan on) the temperature went down to the midway point again, even in traffic (with the fan on). I then decided to take the fan off when I got closer to home. At that point the gauge went near enough as damnit to the 3/4 mark again. Upon putting the electric Kenlowe fan on it took the car around 3 minutes to return to the middle once more.

The car has had new coolant hoses, 82 degree thermostat with the jiggle pin and foot, expansion tank cap. sender and a voltage stabilizer (the fuel gauge seems to be very accurate, not over reading at all). I also have one very toasty heater inside, making me believe that I do not have an airlock present, but you never know.

One thing I can say is that when I flushed the radiator out last autumn alot of rusty coloured water came out with it taking around 6-8 flushes to get the water to run clear. Surprisingly the water ran quite clear and freely from the engine drain plugs, not requiring the coat hanger/rod poking as I anticipated.

Anyway, what would point the blame to in this scenario? Has Stag paranoia finally got to me, or has my radiator seen better days. It uses no coolant, and it sounds fine too.

On a slightly positive note, my Dolly Sprint did get an MOT today with flying colours! I'll put a few pics up as well as putting up a dash shot so you can see what gauge I have in the Stag (I believe the Sprint uses the same stabilizer/sender and wiring arrangement as the Stag).





Oh and sorry for the long post. But I also like to give all the details where possible .

[Bandit1200]

Hi Chas

the steering wheel on your Dolly looks good. Thicker rim than on a Stag? Is it original spec or a Motalita?

Your photo also made me think that wooden door cappings would suit the Stag.

Steve

[nib]

Hi Chas
Do you seem to be showing more fuel on the gauge than you think is in the tank if so it could be your voltage stabilizer.
Mark

[staginhiding]

Hi Chas
The electric fan could lull you in to false sense of security.It should only be used as a back up.
The original Stag cooling sytem is adaquate at best so if there is a problem you need to deal with it and not rely on the fan to bring the temperature back down..

If you have not renewed the radiator it might be time as they do silt up and restrict the flow.

Make sure the system isnt pressurising if you can,Im guessing you are not discharging any water when hot or after you stop the engine.

Just a few suggestions,hope they help..

[Stagdad]

Poor airflow through the rad at high speed has been blamed in the past for overheating on the motorway.A Tr 6 bib spoiler can work wonders.

[Stagdad]

Make sure your not running too retarded on the ignition
Cheers Steve

[V Mad]

If you had rusty coolant then your rad is probably not up to scratch. It is almost impossible to shift all the crud out of the radiator, usually the lower section remains blocked. A steam test at a rad shop should pick up any faults there.

[GDPR]

Exactly the same symptoms mine had when I bought it 5 years ago - anything over 65mph and the gauge went rapidly upwards, only to return to normal if speed returned to below 60 - fitted new Rad, temp sender thermostat (curiously removed but mk1 inlet manifold so not an issue), flushed everything to within an inch of it's life, and finally came to the same conclusion as Stagdad that the airflow was bypassing the intakes at speed - bought a glassfibre TR6 spoiler from Paddocks, tailored it to fit the valance, and problem completely cured.......

Don't worry about having a Dolomite gauge - they are the same internally as the Stag, it's just the chaplets were altered to a long bar so they could claim a longer range of "normal" temperatures when the customer complained of overheating - "if it ain't in the red it ain't overheating - that's what the factory tells us" was often heard in Reception

Lovely Dolomite by the way...... miss my Sprints terribly (had 6). High up the list of next purchase, together with a 2.5pi

[ChasR]

Cheers for the replies chaps, although the temperature gauge yesterday did not help matters after I left the garage with a couple of new body modifications. Nothing that cannot be sorted though .

Hi Chas

the steering wheel on your Dolly looks good. Thicker rim than on a Stag? Is it original spec or a Motalita?

Your photo also made me think that wooden door cappings would suit the Stag.

Steve

Stock steering wheel Steve . It even has the blanking pieces fitted to the centre of the wheel just like the later Stags did. I am not sure if it is thicker than the steering wheel but the picture certainly makes you think that it is the case.

Hi Chas
Do you seem to be showing more fuel on the gauge than you think is in the tank if so it could be your voltage stabilizer.
Mark

Strangely in this case, no. I have on one or two occasions run the car quite low on fuel with the gauge registering next to nothing in the tank, quite an achievement when most old cars seem to over read IME. I have around 3 voltage stabilizers, 2 are new, one is an old but working item (I once misplaced a new item in error!) but I guess I can keep them as spares .

Make sure your not running too retarded on the ignition
Cheers Steve

Regarding the ignition I am running 14 degrees BTDC. I did want to get an dial gauge down cylinder no.2 so as to see whether my crankshaft pulley has slipped after seeing a number of threads where this does seem to have occurred.

Going by what you chaps have said it seems a flow test on the radiator would be a minimum (I was considering a Wards replacement oddly enough) but that if I do intend to drive the car at motorway speeds a TR6 spoiler would not go amiss (There was me thinking the ZF 'box would give the engine an easier time on the motorway but I guess the aerodynamics of the car will still alter matters).

Has anyone had any success with LD Parts' hidden spoiler? Going from previous posts it seems that the TR6 spoiler is a proven cure.

Regarding the gauge I did suspect that was the case Kryten. Did you work at BL during the 70s? I appreciate that BL did ditch a number of items from the Stag to conceal the overheating issues (taking off the TEMP light and sender for one from the earlier Mk1s).

[Stagdad]

Exactly the same symptoms mine had when I bought it 5 years ago - anything over 65mph and the gauge went rapidly upwards, only to return to normal if speed returned to below 60 - fitted new Rad, temp sender thermostat (curiously removed but mk1 inlet manifold so not an issue), flushed everything to within an inch of it's life, and finally came to the same conclusion as Stagdad that the airflow was bypassing the intakes at speed - bought a glassfibre TR6 spoiler from Paddocks, tailored it to fit the valance, and problem completely cured.......

Don't worry about having a Dolomite gauge - they are the same internally as the Stag, it's just the chaplets were altered to a long bar so they could claim a longer range of "normal" temperatures when the customer complained of overheating - "if it ain't in the red it ain't overheating - that's what the factory tells us" was often heard in Reception

Lovely Dolomite by the way...... miss my Sprints terribly (had 6). High up the list of next purchase, together with a 2.5pi

I followed you on the bib spoiler Russ ,certainly have no problem with sustained high speed.i have also pinched Bobs idea of closing off the side gaps to the wings with white upvc soffit board to funnel the air into the rad.
Cheers Steve

[flying farmer]

When I got my Stag it tended to run warm at speed so I fitted a four row rad which made absolutely no difference at all. I then fitted the rather scabby TR6 spoiler I had at the back of the shed. It was made simpler to fit by the fact it had been grounded on the TR so many times the middle had worn through at the bottom which made it easier to curve to the Stag front panel. Temperature is now rock steady on the motorway, so much so that I binned the standard fan setup and now rely purely on the kenlowe
Glad I didn't exchange the rad, as my new project came without one
I did have a problem with my Sprint engined Toledo which had a silted rad a couple of years ago, didnt like to use it on hot days. Finally it burst, fortunately only half a mile from home, and after wasting money on a good looking but worse performing second hand rad, I bit the bullet and fitted a new one.
I then found my thermostat was knackered (stuck open , but the knackered rad let it run at three quarters of the gauge at best)
Neil

[ChasR]

I figured I may as well update this.

There I was all set to buy a TR6 Spoiler. Upon checking the radiator with my IR gun after coming back from Silverstone Classic the top of the radiator was near 80 degrees (as was the temperature sender), , the lower hose around 70 (maybe more) and the nearside corner of the radiator was around 30. Cautiously I put my hand on the nearside lower corner of the radiator and sure enough I could quite comfortably leave my hand there! It seems my radiator has seen better days!

Whilst I would have loved to have purchased an ally rad I do have a few other issues to contend with on the car (although I am glad to say that the list does finally seem to be shrinking (famous last words!). So I settled on a Supergill radiator from a specialist.

Whilst the core does look (possibly thicker than what is currently fitted to the car) I have noticed that it is a staggered 3 core arrangement (using what seems to be the 'gill and tube' arrangement. Would you chaps use it or look elsewhere? OTOH I guess most things will be better than a silted radiator and other owners seemed to have used the radiator without issue . There will be a day when I do not fuss so much, as well as buying a more worthy example of a Stag!

[wilf]

Is it not worth trying to clear the silt out of your rad first? As that is all that is causing the lack of flow?

Or does it set like concrete?

[elvimto]

Do you have a good radiator shop? They should be able to boil it out as we say here and make any repairs, or at least point you in the general direction, There is also a company in Canada that make a excellent drop in replacement which a Canadian owner helped to straighten out he has no problems driving in rush hour traffic which is really bad. With the exchange rate you might come out ahead Last time I checked it was about 450 US Canadian even better.I cant remember the name right now almost way past my bedtime I will look it up.

cheers Stuart

[elvimto]

Found it

https://wizardcooling.com/products/128-1972-1977-triumph-stag-aluminum-radiator.aspx

Just for reference Canadian owner said it works great.