New Radiator - About Time by The Looks of The Old One!

Spent a very long and frustrating Saturday fitting a new radiator and PRT Thermostat kit to my 1.8K series.

Will follow with a seperate write up on the frustrations of fitting the PRT kit (what idiot put the original thermostat where it is!). In the meantime, thought I'd share some pictures of the sad old thing that was passing as a radiator in the front of the enging bay.

Upon removal, it looked bad............




On closer inspection, there appears to be something 'growing' around the fins / cores. I'm not entirely sure, but did wonder if this may be caused by a 'Radweld' type product? Any thoughts??.......



Anyhow, after a real fight with the fan mounting bolts (which actually saw me cut through the old mounting posts with a pair of aviation snips) the new one was slotted neatly into place.

Don't know if it's just a personal fetish - but I love seeing new parts fitted.....



One vacuum fill later and, after a few initial drips from the old thermostat housing (I think whilst the O ring was bedding in) all appears to be water tight and cooling very efficiently.

In fact, it's cooling so well that, on a really hot Saturday evening, it had to idle for at least 20 minutes before the fan cut in. The fan then only ran for a minute or so before cutting out.

Hoping all this work will stand the old girl in good stead for our trip to the lakes next week.

It sounds like an epic fight you had there; bravo for persevering though...if it were me I would have given up after the shouting at it phase and taken it to the garage!

Thank you for your observation, sir. Indeed, as I lay across the engine, with blood running from the two large cuts across my hand and with a constellation of bruises forming on my upper arm - I was sorely tempted.

But I have always considered that throwing the towel in is not the spirit that put the Great in Great Britain; so I persevered. And I won. And that is a very good feeling.

If only the fool that designed the K Series engine (or, at least, the one who decided that a 1.4 could happily be 'taken out' to a 1.8 without increasing the coolant capacity) had shown the same dilligence then we K Series owners may never have lost so many weekends / days off, lavishing attention on Rover's enfant terrible and wishing we'd bought the diesel!

Still, as much as I complain, I do love my Freelander - and I do love a challenge. In that respect, we're well matched.