Radiator mount

[Bill Shaw]

Anyone have details of the radiator mounting? I'm starting to think about that and realized I have not seen how these 2 angle brackets mount or how much of the front plastic gets cut.

[Bill Shaw]

Here I go answering my own questions again. It all became more apparent after I disassembled the front lock carrier. Looks like all the plastic goes away. We keep the metal bumper, brackets attach to that, radiator pair mounts to the brackets.

Does anyone know if the Mk3 radiator uses a similar mount? I need a new one and like the metal end tanks better than the plastic stuff.

[John Phillips]

Bill, there are some pics of my rad mounts in the link next to my blog. I made my own, but mounting procedure is the same. My pics MAY have the measurement for how far you drop the rad down the new mount, I forget the exact distance now, but that is one to get right...check Mark's FB pics too, maybe he has it listed there. Pretty simple mount, you will nail it.

[Bill Shaw]

Found it -

[RedJoker]

Just fyi, you can install the radiator upside down. Not that I did that or anything...

[Bill Shaw]

The holes in my radiator mount brackets weren't right, I ended up drilling new ones. The holes that mount the plate to the car were in the right place but too small, I opened them up to the same size as the car so I could get a decent sized bolt in there.

I used the bottom radiator hole but the top one was an inch or more off so I drilled new top holes. This left the radiator slightly higher at the bottom than the fuel cell. I am concerned about ground clearance for both.

[bzeien]

Hi Bill,

I just did the radiator in mine yesterday. I had to salvage some nuts and bolts (6mm?) from my shell as the normal 8x1.25mm were too small. It took some searching around on both Mark's and John's photo albums to find an example showing enough detail for the mounts. I did install the brackets onto the radiator/condenser assembly prior to mounting it to the car. The bottom of the radiator is now level with the bottom of the tank.

-Bob

[Bill Shaw]

And did your holes in the bracket line up with the mount points on the radiator?

The bottom of mine is an inch or so above the bottom of the fuel cell since I used the lower radiator hole and drilled a new upper one. I hope it clears the fiberglass when I get around to installing the nose. I am not comfortable with how low the radiator and fuel cell are - imagine what's going to happen the first time we bump a curb, never mind hitting a rock or gatorback. I am building some reinforcement/protection for that area.