MadaboutKitcars

Interesting development on the cooling front last night.

In preparation to replace the large bore cooling pipes i disconnected the header tank and when i did I noticed that all the water stayed in it! Which was odd So with all the pipes off i found that the main hose input to the header tank had been crushed and was completely clogged with what i think is "bars leaks"!

So i opened up the connector and dug the gunk out before flushing everything through and then with a new hose i plumbed it all back in and when i did a hot run i could actively see the coolant level rise in the header tank as it heated up. Result!


So i suspect that this not working previously led to excess coolant being expelled from the system and the level getting low, causing extra heat, causing the pipe to burst.....



New big hoses from CBS are now here, so they'll go on this weekend and i'll try again to do more than 5 miles without a comical explosion (although TBH i do enjoy fixing it when it does go wrong )

Well done on the MOT Dave , what was the car like to drive ?

Well i can agree with Mr Clarkson in that driving a Countach is a bit like driving a pill box, but strangely quite good fun

Unfortunately I'm still encountering some minor issues due to some of the original design decisions, but I'm quite happily chugging through them.

I've now fettled the new cable gear change and that is working considerably better than the old rod linkage.

The latest issue is the wiring for the cooling fans (described in another thread), but now that's hopefully sorted I'll be doing some more test runs tomorrow to see if I've nailed the overheating issues. Fingers crossed!

Then it's onto setting up the suspension and fixing the fuel gauge.

While i'm at it, i've started scanning in pics of the original build as the MasterCo build is a bit different to a Mirage.

Some pics of the space-frame and initial panelling:

Front end:


The cockpit panelling going in:




More to come..

Cool, loving the updates Dave.

Sad I missed you at the show, next time

Cheers matey, maybe next time..... Ideally i want to get it all done ready for a run to Exeter at the end of the season. But we'll have to wait and see how it all pans out!

Some more updates.....

Even with the correct fan wiring I've still got cooling system problems It is already better than it was so I'm happy that the new wiring made a difference, but i am now also:

• Ducting in the back of the rads to make the hot air flow through without flowing back on itself.
• Blanking off around the rads in order to force more air through them when on the move.
• Ordered 2x10" high flow cooling fans to replace the cheepo 9" ones I've currently got fitted, as while the 9" ones do lower the temp after a run, it's very slow to do so.
• I've also noticed that now the header bottle/expansion tank is de-gunked and actually working, that it may not be plumbed in correctly. What i assumed was a pressurised overflow tube, may in fact need to be plumbed in! Which would explain the coolant leakage when everything gets hot! So I've done a bit of reading up on how the V8 cooling system _should_ all be connected and i think i now know what needs to be modified.

Apart from that, after checking all of the wiring and a bit of poking around inside the fuel tank, i have found out that the cause of my non working fuel gauge is due to a rusty fuel tank sender. So a new one is now on order!

I've also finally managed to set the timing But this was only achieved by temporarily having to strap a mirror to the back of the bulkhead with cable ties and gaffer tape! (there _must_ be an easier way?) While doing this i did start to have concerns about the fuel tank plumbing, so I may also have a look at that when i fit the new sender as i'm not at all sure that it is balancing out between the 2 tanks.....

Things have been a bit photo-light recently, so i thought i'd make amends.

Here's where i mounted the fused fan relays, just by the variable thermostat switch for the fans in the passage between the fan duct and the engine bay. I also continued tidying up the existing wiring with split conduit.



Rimmer bros sent through my new fuel tank sender and when i changed it over my fuel gauge now works a treat!

I think it's obvious why the old one didn't want to budge!:

As a result of all of my investigation into the cooling system and a lot of reading up, i now think that i've got a head gasket problem as i'm getting a rapidly pressurised cooling system and it's getting far too hot far too quick.

I'm going to try and scrounge one of those test meters that analyses the gases in the cooling header tank in order to prove this before i go much further.

Also, while doing some of the short runs to get the car warmed up i started to get a squeaking/rubbing from the rear offside wheel. With the wheel off i could see where it was rubbing at the back and i ground it down a bit to see if that would cure it (i was thinking rust or bashed backing).
You can see where it was rubbing as the shiny bits on this photo:


Sadly, that stopped for a while but then came back, so that is still being looked into. Possible bearing issues?
I also think that this is quite a nice photo of the rear end and suspension set-up, especially for those with other brands of Countach replica.


Also while the wheel was off i noticed that the boot gas ram seems to warp / lift the boot on the nearside edge when closed:

So for the moment I've swapped that back over for the non-hydraulics that was on there previously.

And i'm dreading the day that i ever need to replace one of these!!

Looking good Dave.

I may have rear disks and calipers available as I have upgraded to four pots if you are interested?

And your rear end looks loads better than mine . I need to hide mine

And my tyres cost me £1k from the US

I think i've now confirmed my my previous suspicions about head gasket problems, so while Steve, Dan and the others continue adding bits to their cars, i'm back to taking bits off of mine

Manifold and engine cover off and new gasket set ordered. I'll wait for that to turn up before i go any further in order to keep crud out of the engine.



In the pic you can also see the temporary engine bay fan to keep the air moving when the car is not moving. This was an idea taken from my old MR2 and it did make a bit of difference, so the big vauxhall fan will be replaced with something better engineered eventually.

Also through the engine bay side hatch you can see the exterior-ply ducting to flow the hot air from the Kenlowes out of the back vents and to keep it away from the engine. Those panels will be replaced in Alloy eventually as i'm still in the "get it all working" phase atm and the "make it look pretty" phase can come later

Hopefully due to the fact that my engine is nowhere near as large as a Lambo V12 and due to the advancements in tech, such as the better efficiency of the alloy rads and the newer fans i'll hopefully be able to engineer something that looks and works cleanly.

As you can see from this pic of an original Countach, Lamborghini had everything in one large compartment and went for a "cram it all in there" approach due the sheer size of the engine!



Scary, but i wouldn't say no to one though

I know i've been quiet this last month, but i's been a month of ups and downs..

I replaced the head gaskets and managed to rebuild the engine and set it up running lovely and smoothly.

But it still got hot...

So i did some trial runs and noticed that when stationary it didn't seem to be bringing the temp down and it was still very slowly getting hotter. But, if I revv'd it a bit the higher water flow did play a part. So i have to accept that i've got flow issues and i reckon mainly due to the differences in hose sizes with 38mm main hose runs, but 25mm connectors on the Mini-rads.

So, i fitted an after market Davies Craig 115 Electric Water pump:



Which is wired to come on with the fans and has successfully stopped it getting hotter when stationary

But it still got hot.... too hot for my linking and even with the EWP it wasn't bringing the temp down very much when all the electrics kicked in

So I re-did my calculations on Rad size and from what i can tell:

An original Rover SD1 V8 radiator is:
core size - 610 x 440 x 30
volume - 8052000 mm cubed
And mounted right at the front of the car!

My after market alloy Mini rads are:
core size - 264 x 260 - x 50
Volume - 3432000 mm cubed
and are tucked away in the haunches.

So while i knew that even with 2 rads i'm not as big as OEM, i had hoped that the extra volume of water in the system overall, the switch to higher powered fans, alloy rads, ducted air flow and an EWP would counter this, but i have to admit defeat

So rather than carry on faffing around, I've decided to rip out the mini rads and start again.

So this is one of the mini rads in situ and it clearly shows the space I've got to play with and how it's limited horizontally by the diagonal bracing in the background. :

So after a few weeks of web trawling i've come across a new contender that will fit in the space I've got with only just a few mm to spare. The Renault 5 GT Turbo rad!

Core size - 310 x 388 x 38
Volume - 4570640

and while 2 of those should be more than enough capacity, if i'm going to do this then it's going to be belt-n-braces this time around as i don't want to have to go through all this faff again and i want to know that if i get stuck in traffic that i have more than enough cooling capacity so as not to have to worry!

So i've found some after market deep-core Renault 5 GT Turbo rads that come in at:

core size - 310 x 388 x 70
Volume - 84,196.00



Just one of those is bigger than the Rover SD1, if 2 of those don't work then I give up and i'm going back to build another Sammio!

I'm also changing my old Landrover plastic header tank whiel i'm at it to an alloy one:



And while the boot lid was off i tidied up some of the reflective coating:


(every little helps!)

Wow, if those rads don't do it then I am now sure what else can?!?!

Just a thought in the door / side duct, is there anything to direct the flow of air up onto the rad? I know this doesn't help when stationery?

The symptoms that you describe are identical to ones that I had with an M6 GTR (mid-mounted Rover V8 with a rad at the front) - it would get hotter and hotter until you gave it some revs which would cause a big rush of cool water around the system. We put a massive rad from a van in it........and it didn't cure the problem.

We solved it by mounting a large header tank at a height that is higher than the top of the rad (obviously). The pump had no problem filling this, and gravity did the rest.

We surmised that (with the original setup) at low revs the pump did not have the umph to get water moving along the pipes to the front, through the rad and back again. If your pump is trying to directly push water into the top of one rad and then into the top of the second, that's a lot of work.

Once we implemented the header solution we were able to revert to the high-efficiency Golf GTI rad that we'd used at the start and everything worked as it should.

I'm not saying this will be the answer, but it might be worth trying before ditching the Mini rads.

Cheers guys. I did duct the airflow and I did also mess around with the pipe routing in order to try a near identical setup to what Oxford describes, but to no avail.
I agree that from my experiences i also think that the original pump isn't up to long piping runs at low revs, but I think that I'll leave the electric water pump plumbed in as that seems to cure those symptoms and changing to the new header tank and a 2-pipe header with a constant flow rather than the old Rover 1-pipe header should also give me the setup you mention.

As I said, this time its belts-n-braces! :-)

The first of the Renault 5 GT Turbo radiators has turned up and i think this may just solve my issues!

Side-by-side with one of the mini rads, which i thought were deep!





Then a quick bit of fettling and it went in _very_ easily! In fact i'm a bit unnerved by how easily and how well it fitted as it looks custom made and is, quite frankly, a bit of a monster!

side-by-side comparison with the previous setup:



And with the airbox top on it really is a very, very good fit!



So back to the plumbing and i hope the 2nd radiator and the new header tank turn up soon as i'm dying to try these out!

Wow, what a result Dave, about time you had some good luck with your mods, well researched

nice one mate. Might be worth infilling the gaps above the rad with blanking of some sort to force the air through the vanes of the rad. A couple of the guys on the other forum swear by it.

Quick update as I'm shattered after 2 long night nights of tinkering.

I've got the new rads and header tank plumbed in and all the leaks sorted and. I've now had a few long in-garage test runs under both low and high revs and the initial results are very promising!

It eventually gets hot and then the new fans kick in for a few mins and the temp drops noticeably and then the fans switch off . This is a massive difference to what it used to do and much more how I was expecting it to work!

Now I just need to try and fit the car around the new rads and hopefully do a few test runs over the weekend to see how on-the-move cooling has changed.

Fingers crossed!

Bodywork all back on with a few minor modifications to one of the grills for the moment (i'll get some photos shortly) and i took it out for a 10 mile drive the other night and the temperature stayed right on the 1/2 way mark!

But.... not wanting to break with tradition, when i got home and I let it tick over on the drive for 10 mins (to further give myself confidence that it's not going to overheat) the engine slowed and stopped and it turns out that i'd run out of electricity

From what i can see this was caused by a not especially well charged battery, lots of small test drives, and the cooling fans and water pump being set to kick in too early so being nearly constantly on.

I have now fettled the fan settings and they come on a lot less and seem to stay on for a shorter period, which makes me think i'd just had it set too low previously. I also had tick-over set too low, that has also been adjusted.

So i'm just doing a big full charge of the battery and i'll give it another longer run out one night in the week when it's not raining.

Then i'm going to enjoy driving it for a bit before i start addressing the major flaws in the bodywork and then replace the centre console when winter comes.

Getting there slowly!

And here it is back together and out of the garage:



I know some of the lambo nerds out there will have spotted a few things i still need to address i.e. re-seat wing mirror gater, move side repeater poistion, line the front wheel arches, and most annoyingly - fix the chip in the front middle of the spoiler! (don't worry, i'm my worst critic!)

But as well as those there is also now an interesting blue 'thing' you may have spotted!



Basically I had to improvise the routing of the piping when fitting the new Renault5 Turbo rads. And as i still didn't know if the new cooling system was going to work i took the approach of getting it in and working and then i can make it tidy later.
So seeing as i had to chop a bit of the grill away (for now), i thought that i could at least make it a feature rather than an obvious 'flaw'! So rather than using a normal pipe joiner and tap a bleed nozzle into the hose (which was still being moved and re-routed) i've used a blue anodised aluminium thermostat housing to join the pipes for the moment, which also doubles up as a bleed nozzle while i test things!

I know it'll annoy the purists, but this is a KIT CAR and i'm as proud of that as i am that it looks like a Countach so for the moment at least anyway

fair shout and well said Dave

Lambo look fantastic dave health to enjoy and youve done a real good job on her keep the work up

So i took it out for a good drive on Sunday and managed to notch up 20 miles Including through some rain, which was an experience!

Obviously with the new cooling system in place I was mainly focusing on watching the temperature and as i haven't finished boxing around the rads yet i knew that the airflow on the move wouldn't be optimal.

That said the temp stayed at just over 1/2 and you could spot the fans cutting in occasionally, but only ever for 1 min or so and then it would go a good while before they came back on. So i'm more than happy that when i put the ducting in place it'll never use the fans on the move, which is ideal!

But.....

When i got home and parked up on the drive, it was ticking over for a few mins while i did some more checks and then the engine stopped.
<groundhog day>
I swore LOTS!

Electrics were fine this time and loads of electricity left.
Cooling was fine.
So it had to be fuel. and right enough i could hear the fuel pump ticking away but nothing was coming through

Then it started again, i started it up, reversed it into the garage and that's where it stayed until tonight.

<more to come later>