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Hi Everybody

 

Has anybody any experience in fitting an expansion tank to a standard TR3A water circuit?

I am considering fitting such a device before I go more than 1000 miles to Classic Le Mans this year, and obviously on tour in that area for a week before heading back to Spain which takes 2 days each way. On a recent 430 mile round trip and again today on a 100mile trip, in temperatures of 28 degrees C, I found I was running just a little hot and on some occasions the Kenlowe fan was running nearly all the time due to the excessive daytime heat with the usual hot winds, not cooling the engine enough.

If anyone has any experience with fitting such a tank, please let me know, where did you get the tank from, presumably from a donor car maybe even from a breakers yard, and details of the unit and fitting.

Thanks fellows

 

Dave

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Hi Everybody

 

Has anybody any experience in fitting an expansion tank to a standard TR3A water circuit?

I am considering fitting such a device before I go more than 1000 miles to Classic Le Mans this year, and obviously on tour in that area for a week before heading back to Spain which takes 2 days each way. On a recent 430 mile round trip and again today on a 100mile trip, in temperatures of 28 degrees C, I found I was running just a little hot and on some occasions the Kenlowe fan was running nearly all the time due to the excessive daytime heat with the usual hot winds, not cooling the engine enough.

If anyone has any experience with fitting such a tank, please let me know, where did you get the tank from, presumably from a donor car maybe even from a breakers yard, and details of the unit and fitting.

Thanks fellows

 

Dave

 

 

Pm sent

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I assume you mean a header tank with a sealed colling system, rather than an expansion tank with an unsealed system.

 

Assuming you do, contact Simon Watson at TR Enterprises. He'll be able to help you sort this out.

 

David

Edited by david ferry
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Hello Dave,

I made a post last year outlining the cooling system modification I intended to make to my 1956 Morgan with a TR3 engine. My engine used to overheat terribly. After a hard run the engine would spew coolant out of the overflow pipe (4 pound pressure cap) and gurgle as steam formed and collapsed. I believed the problem was a flow distribution problem and decided to tap off the discharge of the water pump housing and feed coolant to the rear petcock. In experimenting with the pump, I discovered that the impeller end clearance of 75 to 80 thousands of an inch is ridiculously large. The pump would not pump at all at idling speed and was marginal at any speed. I corrected the end clearance by installing a 77 thou washer riveted in place with flush pop rivets (see picture), and with the gasket the pump end clearance is now about 7 thousands of an inch. The pump now pumps like a pump should, and I'm using the standard, cheap 4 bladed pump. My cooling problems are gone. I did install a back pressure plate to allow 1/5th of the total flow to the rear petcock as this is what I set out to do originally, but in actual fact, just fixing the pump might have been enough. The usual fix of installing an electric radiator fan only enhances the thermosyphoning that these engines must do to keep cool in the absence of a good pump. With the end clearance corrected, the pump will work at slow idle and will be at least eight times more effective at 1500rpm from my experiments. To give you an indication of how well this modification worked, the other day it was 27 celcius here in southern Ontario Canada (which is warm for May), and I took my old car for a hard run for 3 miles at 95 MPH. I pulled over immediately and shut the engine off right away. No noise and no coolant spewing out from the overflow. The firewall temperature was so cool I could hold my hand on it, as the underhood (bonnet) temperature was way down from previously. Bear in mind too that the Morgan radiator is 1/3 smaller than its Triumph counterpart, and the fan is quite a distance from the radiator. My cooling system is bone stock aside from fixing the pump and distributing some of the flow to the rear petcock to keep #4,3 cylinders from boiling. If you have time before your trip, I would look to your pump and correct the end clearance and shim the pump with gaskets such that the impeller is just free to move. It needs to be small, as even 30 thou is a ridiculously large end clearance for a centrifugal pump that tiny. Good luck, Fred Winterburn, Ripley, Ontario, Canadapost-8191-127493253903_thumb.jpgpost-8191-127493253903_thumb.jpg

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Dave, Here are the rest of the pictures of my modifications. The one picture shows my back pressure/nozzle plate. This does restrict overall flow slightly, but since the pump is working properly after the end clearance was corrected, this doesn't matter much. The nozzle plate allows about 1/5th of the flow to go to the rear which helps cool #4 and #3 cylinders. The nozzle helps jet some water towards #2 cylinder liner, and the small holes ensure that #1 cylinder liner is cooled at the front, and this was a good way to fine tune the front to rear flow ratio as well. The pump housing tap-off is a barbed elbow with a 1/4 inch pipe thread. There was lots of thickness in the cast iron to do this. I discarded the brass union seen in the one picture on the water pump discharge in the final assembly and just used the hose barbed elbow. For the rear petcock, I ran a 1/4 inch pipe thread tap (same as pump housing tap-off) into the old threads to clean it up and give them a taper for the brass fitting used to tee in the hose connection. Hope this helps out. Fred Winterburn.post-8191-127493342563_thumb.jpgpost-8191-127493344859_thumb.jpgpost-8191-127493346753_thumb.jpg

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Good day Gentlemen.

Thanks to all who have come up with ideas for my problem.

David, - I have spoken with Simon Watson and he has sent me an e mail with a picture of a header tank he has made that fits into the blanking plate in the other steering column position.

Fred - Your solution with the pump impellor seems logical, but how does it miss the heads of the pop rivets? Also the mod to the petcock and the pump seems a good idea to get extra water to the number 4 cylinder. I flushed my rad. out this morning on the advice of Simon, but there was no solids in the water at all only a slightly rusty water solution, which is normal. However on re-filling the system and bleeding it out, I noticed that the water in the neck of the rad. tank, did not show any significant movement i.e. swirling when the engine was running at 1500 rpm other than just a slight vibration type of disturbance on the surface of the water. Would this indicate to you that the pump is not doing it's work enough?

Nice talking to you all again

 

Dave

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Dave,

 

I don't know if you'd see any disturbance in the radiator or not, I've never looked in mine for that purpose!

 

However, the coolant will only flow around the radiator once the thermostat is open, after the correct temperature is reached.

 

Was your thermostat open?

 

Regards

 

David

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Hello David, You asked: Fred - Your solution with the pump impellor seems logical, but how does it miss the heads of the pop rivets? Also the mod to the petcock and the pump seems a good idea to get extra water to the number 4 cylinder.

 

David, I suppose the picture does not show it well, but the 77 thou thick washer was held in place using tapered head pop rivets and I counter sunk the holes for them to fit flush using a larger sized drill after drilling the usual 1/8 inch holes. With a slight bit of emory to smooth down the rough spots, the rivets only sit proud of the spacer by about 1 thousands of an inch. Take care, Fred By the way, with this modification and the back pressure plate to proportion some of the flow to the rear, if I open the rear petcock with the engine running and stone cold (before it has had time to pressurize from heat), the coolant will spray out like crazy at idle. Lots of pressure available with the 'new' pump.

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Dave,

 

I don't know if you'd see any disturbance in the radiator or not, I've never looked in mine for that purpose!

 

However, the coolant will only flow around the radiator once the thermostat is open, after the correct temperature is reached.

 

Was your thermostat open?

 

Regards

 

David

 

 

Hi David

Funny how silly things slip your mind. I only had the engine running a few minutes when I looked in the neck, certainly not long enough for the temp. to come up to normal running, so that is something I must do again.

Fred

I understand that you used countersunk rivets in the housing, but how long were they? as I assume that they were blind holes. Also was the distance ring made of stainless steel and also the pop rivets, surely aluminium wouldn't be strong enough, and did you lock them in with loctite or the likes?

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Dave,

The distance ring is just a plain old steel washer that I bought from my local farm supply store. I had to turn it down slightly on the outer diameter so that it would fit into the recess in the pump body. The rivets are carbon steel as well. I did use JB Weld brand epoxy to help keep it in place, but I think this was totally unecessary. The rivets go right through into the suction side of the pump housing. I can't remember exactly how long the rivets were, but they just went through to the suction side. You're right, almost any material would do, and with a good 50/50 mix of antifreeze solution, there should not be any corrosion issues. To determine the end clearance, I used plumber's putty which I peeled out and measured with a set of dial calipers.

The washer I used had an inside diameter that was slightly smaller than the original hole for the 'suction eye', but as long as it is not too small, it shouldn't matter. And quite frankly, in my opinion the original hole is a little large anyway.

Dave, if you did decide to go the whole nine yards, and make a back pressure plate like I did to force some flow to the rear, make it out of thinner material than I did. I used 1/8 aluminium plate which offsets the water pump pulley from the generator and crankshaft pulley by the same amount. I'm sure this offset won't matter as I've seen much worse on other engines without belt wear or bearing problems, but thinner would be better. Next time I would have used a thin piece of epoxy glass circuit board material I had lying around. Still, I'm happy with the present arrangement.

What I would like to see, is a company like Racetorations in the UK for example, make pump housings with little or no clearance, and provide gasket shim kits with them so the owner can 'clearance' the impeller correctly. Take care, Fred

 

Hi David

Funny how silly things slip your mind. I only had the engine running a few minutes when I looked in the neck, certainly not long enough for the temp. to come up to normal running, so that is something I must do again.

Fred

I understand that you used countersunk rivets in the housing, but how long were they? as I assume that they were blind holes. Also was the distance ring made of stainless steel and also the pop rivets, surely aluminium wouldn't be strong enough, and did you lock them in with loctite or the likes?

 

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  • 6 years later...

For what it's worth I modified my system in a fairly simple way:

Add a non sealed expansion bottle connected to the normal overflow pipe, Modify the rad cap so that in addition to the 4PSI sprung seal at the base, it also seals around the top lip of the rad.

To do this I took a standard TR2 / 3/ 3A rad cap, removed the thin metal "seal" from within the top part (used a lathe to do this), then replaced it with a proper seal. I used thick leather as I had some, but rubber would work just as well if not better.

Result is after filling the rad right to the top, & adding about ¼ pint to the expansion bottle, after a run, & after cooling down again, I can remove the rad cap, & the level is right up to the top.

 

Bob.

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Bob, the non sealing of the return flow element of the standard cap caught me out. I fitted a sealed non pressurised cap to the rad then a Dolomite expansion tank with 4 psi pressure cap. The tank is on the lh inner wing. The system stays full. I also bothered to fit a bleed plug in the thermostat housing

 

Peter W

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I have a slightly different problem in that the Peerless as the thermostat housing is the highest point in the cooling system (debatable with the heater matrix I know). The main standard rad position is some 2" lower.

I have built a header tank right at the back of the engine bay with a filler neck that sites ( with the cap on!)a hairs breadth underneath the bonnet skin.

 

This works well and gives me a head of water not seen since they left Slough 55 years ago!

This header tank drops its guts into an overflow bottle (inside the wing) where it sucks up when cold...at least I have that bit sorted.

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I have a slightly different problem in that the Peerless as the thermostat housing is the highest point in the cooling system (debatable with the heater matrix I know). The main standard rad position is some 2" lower.

I have built a header tank right at the back of the engine bay with a filler neck that sites ( with the cap on!)a hairs breadth underneath the bonnet skin.

 

This works well and gives me a head of water not seen since they left Slough 55 years ago!

This header tank drops its guts into an overflow bottle (inside the wing) where it sucks up when cold...at least I have that bit sorted.

Pics?

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I have a slightly different problem in that the Peerless as the thermostat housing is the highest point in the cooling system (debatable with the heater matrix I know). The main standard rad position is some 2" lower.

I have built a header tank right at the back of the engine bay with a filler neck that sites ( with the cap on!)a hairs breadth underneath the bonnet skin.

 

This works well and gives me a head of water not seen since they left Slough 55 years ago!

This header tank drops its guts into an overflow bottle (inside the wing) where it sucks up when cold...at least I have that bit sorted.

Nigel

 

Perhaps one of these in the heater hose - shame they are 16mm hose sized.

http://www.carbuildersolutions.com/uk/black-nylon-16mm-joiner-with-bleed

Peter W

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The final version of the MG Midget, the one with the Triumph Spitfire 1500 engine, had a bleeding nipple on top of the thermostat housing - that being the highest point of the system. Perhaps it is time for some tinkering in the shed to come up with a Peerless version of this thermostat housing?

 

Here's a big pic of a Midget's engine bay with the housing clearly visible (click the pic for large)

 

mg-midget-04-1b19ae7b.jpg

 

Menno

Edited by Menno van Rij 2
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