Almost from the first day that I bought my first sprite, it has had a tendency to overheat at various times. Solutions over th eyears have included having the radiator cleaned, reverse flushing the block, fitting an electric fan, fitting a header tank and sealed cap, fitting a hose from the back of the head (heater outlet) to the top tank of the radiator (original temp gauge hole). The temerature gauge in any case is better in the head, after all thats where the excess heat will do the damage. In other words, the obvious and less expensive options.

With the advent of hotter race motors even al this wasnt enough.

A later model cross flow radiator coped better than the old MK 2A unit, but it is fairly difficult to fit because you need different hoses, thermostat housing, the extra cross pipe behind the rackand the later model mounting hardware. Header thank and electric fan naturally remained.

A cheaper alternative was to adapt the raditor from an Austin 1800. This involves a bit of fancy soldering to get the hose inlets to the right size, and some clever work with a hammer to adapt it round the chassis rails, and a few handmade brackets to hold it in place. This worked very well even on bery hot race motors. But they are heavy. (see John Moores and Peter Holbeachs cars).

Aluminium is the obvious answer. And there it is, the VW Golf radiator. Very light, enough cooling capacity so that you need to blank some of it off, but more difficult to fit because it is big. If you dont mind cutting a few bits off the car its quite easy though. (see Jeff Smiths car).

The latest conversion is the Suzuki Swift manual raditor. It is smaller than any Sprite radiator, weighs very little more than the Golf one and has the outlets in convenient places, although the cross flow thermostat housing makes the top hose adaptation easier. Its not hard to whip up some brackets to fit it, and with the electric fan running can keep the race motor cool forever. (see Owen Crombies car).

Of course for all normal situations a new heavy duty core in a standard raditor will do the job, but wheres the challenge in that....

Owen Crombie.