NM Radiator removal

[oehrick]

Hi all

Having replaced the filler & overflow hoses & finally realising the filler cap didn't actually seal, I replaced this and refilled water, on starting none of the instant water issuing from the top so I was going to go for a first run on the road after having pulled a few dead things from the garden, thankfully with the tractor standing on the tarmac drive after 20 mins or so I noticed a puddle of greeny water under the front end Oh c**p ! now it had warmed and developed some pressure I could see a small waterfall from the bottom of the tubes spilling into the shroud The old chap had obviously let her freeze at some time and 'managed' this by using a fuel tank cap so no pressure was developed.

Not a happy (Easter) bunny as I had been hoping to take her out round the village on St Georges day, can't start dismantling just yet as 'twill be needed at short notice to drag the old Nuffield from her lair in the undergrowth to where her new owner can get his wagon.............

Since I have a few days in hand and after looking at the Workshop manual, are there any hints / tips or cautions for getting the nosecone off and the rad out, that anyone who has trod this path would care to offer ?

Thanx

[peter2]

Hi,

are you sure, that there's a hole and not simply too much water inside?
I replaced the radiator and after filling the new water in and driving around, water run out of it, too. I filled the upper hose up to the maximum, but there was no room for the expanding hot water.
Now water level is on the bottom of the upper hose and nothing is coming out anymore.

Peter

[AdrianNPMajor]

Hi Oehrick
I second Peter's thoughts. I had my rad recored, so it's a good yardstick. When the engine is up to temperature, the rad does exactly the same as yours if I fill her right to the brim, and settles down to the level that Peter describes ie the water shows at the the bottom of the top hose when you remove the cap. From your description the rad sounds fine.
Best
Adrian

[oehrick]

Thanks for your replies chaps, that was approximately the situation with the non sealing rad cap, once the initial pump 'churning' effect had subsided it had a rad full of water without the header being full.

Having fitted a replacement overflow pipe which is overlong and comes outside the nosecone I can see what is coming from the filler, after starting with the right cap the core was dry, after running awhile and warming up the water was coming from the top of the bottom header, trickling into the shroud and on tickover falling into the tombstone and pooling under the tractor, with some revs on being blown back by the draught.

Having released the pressure once the remaining water had blown out no more was seen, about 2.5 litres topped up the rad, tightening the cap and it started again so I'm pretty sure the leak is either tube(s) to bottom header or maybe seam of bottom header - either way I think its too much for radweld, don't seem to be able to buy the Barrs 'dog turd' (if you'll pardon the term) sealing sticks any more here (I had a leak in the heater core of my Swedish Brick last year and none of the modern jollops worked, on the 940 they start with the heater core and built the car around it )

So on the button as your advice is, unfortunately I'm past that situation - on the up side though, when I first got her running again I was expecting to have to repair the pump as water was spurting out of it, this has now healed up

Cheers & Beers

[AdrianNPMajor]

Hi Oehrick
In light of the new info getting the rad recored looks like the only workable option. If one of the vertical tubes is leaking, and you're adept at closing them off, that's an option, but such an approach can be very hit-and-miss with no guarantee of a successful outcome. If the solder has cracked where the tubes join the header and lower tanks, it's a right s*d trying to seal the cracks.
As for removing the rad, it's pretty straightforward. The cowl is held position by a row of bolts tapped into the tombstone. One or two of them are a little difficult to get to, but no real problem. If you have headlamps, you'll need to disconnect the wiring. The rad is held in place by a strut at the top and two spring-mounted bolts at the base. The nuts on these bolts will probably need a good soaking with WD40 over a few days prior to doing the job.
Best
Adrian

[oehrick]

Thanks Adrian,

I called in after seeing mother earlier on and had the grilles out, can feel the front bolts into the tombstone and have annointed with diesel, its a fairly leaky / breathy engine which has spent a lot of time on the sawbench so many of the concealed areas have a build-up of oily sawdust 'goo' and I'm hopefull they won't be too rusted, feels like a ring spanner job without much clearance for a socket/rachet. I'm not certain what the headlamp wiring is like, probably OK.

Fortunately I spent some years working with stained / leaded glass after college and in more recent times my (late) best friend & near neighbour made organ pipes so I've had some experience in soft soldering and have gas & electric irons with heavy copper bits and a variety of fluxes and solders up to pure tin, so if the leaks are accessible will have a go first, I put new headers on a S1 Landrover Rad core about 25 years back and while I didn't get it right first time got there in the end, what I don't have is a float tank to resolder all the core tubes at once so hopefully its the header to core seam which has split - fingers crossed.

I'll let you know what I find and how it goes.

I'm also planning on fine grating some soft soap and some sawdust soaked in linseed (which is what the Barrs sticks smell like) to add as an experiment, just in case I can get a short term fix which will give me a few miles so I can take her out for a run on St Georges, along with several cans of spare water just in case...........

Hope everyone has had a decent Easter

[AdrianNPMajor]

Hi Oehrick
Sounds like you know your way around rads. I'd love to watch and learn. Any chance of photos of the operation?
Best
Adrian

[nzMark]

Hi all, if you need a good quick tempory fix then tip a tin (small) of GROUND pepper into radiator, it will get carried around with water and will stick in crack and swell to seal leak. works well unless leak is massive.
Your tip for the day!

[Pavel]

One of the reasons "it's a right s*d to seal the cracks" is that the cores are silver soldered to the plates of the header and footer tanks. This allows the lesser heat requirements of ordinary solder to be used for attaching the tanks proper without the fear of the silver solder runnung.
Oh; and don't forget to remove the bonnet first, Oehrick!

Pavel

[super6954]

Hi all, if you need a good quick tempory fix then tip a tin (small) of GROUND pepper into radiator, it will get carried around with water and will stick in crack and swell to seal leak. works well unless leak is massive.
Your tip for the day!

Hi
if the pepper don't cure it crack an egg in the filler that might seal a bigger leak . If it don't I hope you like the smell of poached egg with pepper on .
Egg is apparently another old school fix I have heard about from guys in more than one country, that don't know each other . Never tried it so don't know how well it works but the guys all say it did when the water was real hot.
Regards Robert

[oehrick]

Hi All,

Adrian - Don't know about that, Pavel has just enlightened me on something I thought I knew As for photo's, I always seem to forget the camera until too late - will try to remember.

NZMark & Robert - hadn't heard of pepper but can see the logic, sawdust, cornflour, ground oatmeal and egg all seem to have been staples and another which I used on my Industrial Standard was mustard powder (this was my first tractor back in my teens) ran around with the mag set so she was pinking, got good and hot and the leak slowed to a dribble, put her on the saw bench for an hour or so and despite the yellow streaks no water seen THEN I made my big mistake, I undid the filler cover and breathed in just as the pressure released in my direction the tears took a day to stop, what my kids call brain freeze (the sensation when you eat ice cream too quickly) took several days to depart OUCH mustard should come with a health warning

Pavel, thanks for that vital bit of info on the silver solder use, having seen modern rad production video on the TV I had assumed the tubes were float soldered into the endplates like they do PCB's with soft solder, thats obviously something more recent for cheap and nasty production, on the upside is the tube joints will be a lot more substantial so less likely to have suffered frost heave than the header joints and if leaking there, it is OK to soft solder caulk over silver solder (the reverse is not the case as I have found when people have brought me small steam boilers they have failed to soft solder when they should have hard soldered or brazed - something about the lead content)

As a useful tip in return for all yours, if you are either soft or hard soldering using a torch for heat and don't want solder flowing wherever the flux runs when it warms, draw around the joint with either a soft pencil (I tend to use the carpenters sort) or paint round it using Tippex or similar typists white correction fluid (getting rarer with the demise of the typewriter of course !) both resist the heat and neither solder type will bridge, I used Pencil when I soldered the bottom of my fuel tank which left quite a neat magin and allowed the solder to pool more thickly than it would otherwise do (also handy if trying to repair a PCB where solder insists on running, likewise if replacing a component and the solder sticks in the 'ole and refuses to blow out, poke a sharp pencil in the 'ole while the solder is wet)

I'll let you know how clogging up with foreign substances in the water works out but it'll only be temporary (currently favouring a 'batter' of soap, cornflour and fine sawdust)

[nzMark]

hiya all. egg works BUT only use the white. the yolk mucks up the effect. pepper washes out with no residue so to me is awesome.
whatever you use have fun.

[Pavel]

Thanks, Oehrick; never heard of the pencil trick. Handy to know as I sometimes have cause to repair PC boards.

Pavel

[oehrick]

I've had a road run at last <gloat mode on>

I took over some fine hardwood sawdust soaked in raw linseed oil, shook up with some water and cornflour, warmed the tractor up and topped up the rad, after ten minutes or so the small waterfall turned into drips, after half an hour of puttering about, dry as a bone

Took the opportunity to run upto our neighbours farm and back on their lokeway as the main road is pretty busy, not a drop, so I took off down the main road to another neighbour who has a Dexta and a 'grey thing' and upset several folk who wanted to go faster neighbour had a run round on her and other than being sloppy in the usual places thought she runs well (I've a nasty intermittent graunching coming from the lhs, can't make out if it is in the brake or the trumpet, sounds awfully like a bearing, I need to whittle a long enough sounding stick to hear it a bit better.

So only a couple of miles but returned to her shed with no problems and a very happy owner ! (this confirms my belief that the Barrs sticks were mainly sawdust & linseed)

Called in on the chap who is having my Nuffield on the way back home, who was horrified to hear I was using a pressurised rad cap because of the risk to the wet liner seals and insisted I took a non pressurised cap away with me - is this the general view ?

Glad the pencil tip is one to log Pavel, I learned it a long time ago from an old chap who made scale steam fittings that looked like jewellery. The other one for soft soldering was to have a tallow soaked rag handy to wipe off any surplus/drips, apparently old time plumbers and cablemen used the cured skins of moles.

<Gloat mode off>

[oehrick]

Pavel,

Forgot to mention in the above, for pcb's those draftsmans type propelling pencils are brilliant for keeping through plated holes clear, don't need to be a good fit, the mere smell of the graphite seems to break the surface tension

Have a good weekend
Rick

[Pavel]

Thanks, Oehrick; was a bit concerned about finding moles for their skins -- they're in rather short supply out here. Got millions of rabbits, though: any good?

Pavel

[oehrick]

No moles ?? how do your plumbers & cable jointers manage then Pavel, use a disused Koala as a glove ?

I think our rabbit population may be seeing a reccurrence of myxamatosis, while I'm no fan of the rabbit I do not like to see them afflicted with it and having despatched quite a lot over the years - just can't fancy eating even healthy looking ones now

Of course you will know the importance to Australian development the invention of wire netting had, but did you know that the county town of Norfolk near where Brian & I live is where it was invented by Barnard Bishop & Barnard and its manufacture automated ?? The local museum had one of the original, mainly wooden machines in its care, I've not been in since a recent 'makeover' but it is probably no longer on display like much else the current custodians have no interest in, understanding of, or care for. Makes my blood boil

Other than a brief mostly nocturnal visit to a fish processing plant in Perth I've not seen your side of Aus, though a few months in weeks & fortnights on the East coast between Sydney & Cairns has enabled a little free time for exploring things a metalhead finds interesting

I see our young Royals have just escaped the attractions of the place (and your anti monarchists) and returned home, at one time folks travelling out there at His / Her Majesty's pleasure stayed much longer Have a good weekend

[Pavel]

Had a look at the Barnard Bishop & Barnard website. Doesn't say they invented the netting; just that they made tons of the stuff and exported millions of rolls to Australia. Oz needed a few to construct the 3256 Ks of rabbit proof fencing -- now upgraded to keep dogs, dingoes, emus and roos out [mostly].
Mostly we use fibre optics, fusion welding of thermo-plastic piping and brazing of copper tube.
Pity it was after dark during your visit; you could have visited the Perth Mint where they process over 150 tonnes of gold into coins and bars each year.
And please, don't send too many more Royals out here -- it costs us a couple of shiploads of iron ore to accommodate them!

Pavel