Radiator

[mauveelan]

My elan is a RHD 1991se without A/C . I have 3 radiators at the front of the car . The engine cooling one in the middle . The intercooler under the drivers side headlamp, now at the risk of appearing stupid can someone please tell me what the radiator under passenger side headlamp is for.

Richard

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Not a stupid question. It is the engine oil cooler.

[dapinky]

....nearly right.....

....as a RHD car, the one by the drivers wheel is the oil cooler, and the one by the passenger wheel is the intercooler.

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Sorry, they said the intercooler is under the driver side headlamp, so I assumed she (really he) had a LH drive car.

Edit 24-8-14: Sorry Richard. My fingers sometimes type without thinking...

[Fredjohn]

My elan is a RHD 1991se without A/C
Richard

John: no assumptions needed!! But Richard (not she!) did get them the wrong way round as Dave said, hence confusion........

At least the rad is in the middle on both.

[mauveelan]

Thanks for replies , apologies for misleading you, I got it wrong way round on the Passenger / Driver sides .

Richard

[mauveelan]

The reason I was poking around the radiators was to identify if was possible to try the old fashioned method of increasing the running temperature of the car heater /temperature gauge. Dont get me wrong the heater and the gauge works as I understand all other Elans do , that is normal car driving gives little real heat and little movement on gauge , but idling gives more heat and higher gauge reading then if left idling fans kick in above half gauge reading . This situation has always appeared to me to be a case of overcooling and perhaps a piece of cardboard would prove or disprove . There is a fibreglass panel below radiator which will need drastic action to remove in order to insert cardboard as the fasteners look to be in a similar state to the wheel arch liner fastners and they needed their heads ground off. Any comments or maybe some has already tried this.

[Fredjohn]

I think the cooling system works perfectly well, assuming it is not faulty: it is merely the gauge that does not read in a linear manner. If you do an Elanscan and look at the actual temp readings rather than relying on the gauge you will probably see it is not "overcooling".

If the heater is not giving enough heat there is probably a problem with the heater matrix or the heater control valve: hopefully the latter. These are easily replaced with a non-rusting plastic Volvo sourced item: see WikiLEC. If it is a blocked matrix, give the system a good flushing and hope it clears. If not it is matrix out: I think epipete did a posting on this at some time.

[epipete]

with John,

My thoughts would be NOT to block any radiators. The various 'radiators' IIRC are (from inside the cabin)

Left hand = the Intercooler which supply's cold air to the turbo. Any alteration to the flow of air will be detrimental to boost and may damage the turbo

Right hand = the Oil Cooler, again the engine is engineered to run very hot so interfering with the oil cooling capacity is an engine killing measure

Neither of these is likely to improve cabin temperature efficiency.

Finally, the Central Radiator is for engine coolant which, again, is critical to maintaining engine integrity and so I should not tamper with it.

The coolant is allowed in to the Heater Matrix via a valve (as John mentioned above), this can be located between the coolant header tank and the plenum (from this you should find two pipes leading through the bulkhead (to the matrix)). If you disconnect these pipes you can flush the matrix out and check the condition of the valve. This will determine if a blockage is the cause.

image.jpg (44.05 KiB) Viewed 4088 times

The other reason for lack of heat is that various vacuum pipes are used to activate various settings on the heater flaps (in addition to activating the aforementioned valve). You will need to check that you have an appropriate vacuum; but in the first instance (while I dig out the proper thread ) if you run the engine to warm (heater set to cold) and check the temp of the two pipes leading through the bulkhead they should be cold as the cold setting operates a vacuum which closes the valve, get someone to operate the heater to hot and watch to see of the Valve automatically opens. Either way you can now open the valve manually (if setting to hot didn't work) and you should feel the pipes getting warm (and then hot) as water flows through!

Give it a try and shout if you need more info.

Pete

Here is a useful thread: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=22758&p=286929&hilit=Matrix#p286929

And another: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=21666&p=272723#p272723

[mauveelan]

Thanks again for the replies , decided to start from the very beginning and replace thermostat (again) this time with one from a different source, local motor factors .The stat came a box marked FIRST LINE complete with assortment of gaskets. and it looked to be made a little more substantial/accurately made compared to the one removed which I had installed a while back. Things are better, more heat but still the gauge reads only in the first quarter for normal driving but now in the high part of this quarter not as low as before . This would seem to support Fredjohn when he advises that the gauge calibration is not linear , a small move in gauge reading representing quite a few degrees of an increase in temperature. I closely examined the stat which I removed , discovered it never really totally closed because of poor engineering , the copper valve was not square in the stat housing (visible at the base where the copper valve part is not central in housing) and was never able to seal itself . This was the type of stat with a notch as an emergency vent , cannot see any mfg. name the only marking is the temp marked on steel side not copper base as on the new one. Cabin heat now satisfactory not quite as warm as a modern but a real improvement.

Richard

[GeoffSmith]

Richard, the gauge and sender are not matched, one being Isuzu and the other being GM so just under ¼ scale corresponds to normal operating temperature and ¾ scale corresponds to fans on.