My bay cooling system which is working perfectly!

beetleseb · Last edited by beetleseb on Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:56 am; edited 1 time in total

Hi guys

Lots of you asking the same questions about about bus rads, so I thought I'd show you mine

Obviously no garentees, any slight change could make it less affective and I'll always try and help with any problems but be aware I'm no rad expert, I just went to a few that where and came up with this!

Anyone who wants to see, and go for a trip in her is welcome. We are in Cheltenham. We have been to sweden, denmark, germany, france and belgium in this beast so I reckon thats a good few trips to try her out!

The thermostat is fitted and is a genuine Subaru one, I beleive this is very important.

The main rad itself is a Peugeot 306 V6 manual rad (take a look at nissens website to see drawings) it has usefull in and out pipes and is big without having too thick a core (chelenham rads recomended with poorer ariflow not to have too thick a core) All pipes too and from this are rubber or ali and are 35mm. This rad is laid flat in the belly of the van with one ecu controlled 12" fan. Its quite high up and out of harms way. Onto this is bolted a large scoop and its this whch pulls enough air through to cool her, without it she runs with the fans on.

At the back is the smallest rad I could find, a Honda Civic rad. This does not do any cooling! it is only there to make plumbing and bleeding easy and to have somewhere to mount anouther 12" fan. I found that one 12" fan was too little to cool it in heavy traffic, especially if you'd been thrashig it just before! A simple expansion bottle from Vehicle Wiring Products takes care of fluids and Halfords provided the antifreze (its the own brand pink one). You do need this rad becouse an extra fan is useful and without it any air sits up with the sensers making it look like your running much hotter than you are.

I've left piccys out of the rear rad as I'm swapping to a pressurised bottle like elusive stranger, mainly cos my new engine gets in the way!

I'll post some picys and dimensions of the duct as soon as I can brave getting underneath her in the cold.

It runs very well. The engine is a 2.2 NA (I wouldn't want the extra heat of a turbo!) On the motorway she sits at 80mph and the temp sits at 85-95deg C depending on outside temp. The fans are NEVER on on the motorway and they should come on at 98 as they are ECU controlled and there is no speed sensor.

Around town the temp tends to be around 85 and as long as its over 30 the fans should not be on. Under 30 or in heavy traffic the fans do come on but mainly in summer and never for too long.

Problems? The sytem leaks abit but I want to redo the piping. Bleeding it is not hard but you have to jack up the van front, then back etc etc to get the air out and can take a while. The worst problem is that I left some of the front heating duct in and got steam up through the dash on a rainy day, but this was easily solved with a bit of duct blocking! Other than that ots been vey good. With my previous pro built back mounted rad the worst car I've ever owned with the current set up, the BEST

A huge thankyou to MR B at Lateshift Racing, Cheletenham rads and Rjes for answering all my daft questions and designing most of this for me!

Hope all this helps

Seb
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gerrelt · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:05 pm Post subject:

Nice!!

I can't wait to see the pictures.

Did you connect the two rads in series?
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beetleseb · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:11 pm Post subject:

Yes in series.

Cheltenham Rads gave me a long talk about how water will always run along the easiest path, which is also the hotest. So if the back rad was in parrallel most of the water would just run through that and not be cooled.

The main rad runs from fron to back and to the front again (take a look at the rad on nissens) and so the water has to run past any cooler spots in the ducting.

Seb
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beetleseb · Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:00 am Post subject:

Finally some piccys
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ElusiveStranger · Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject:

Nice one Seb. Thanks for sharing bud.
I take it the fan's on top of the rad and is a 'sucker' with the scoop blasting air up through the rad?
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beetleseb · Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject:

Yes its a sucker!

Glad I bought a stock rad as re-fitting it I made a small hole! how pissed would I be if it was a custom! not an £80 stock one

doh

New rad please!

sEB
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ElusiveStranger · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:05 am Post subject:

Ooooops

Summat to be said about stock ones, if they bust when you're away they should be easy to get hold of Happy

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The advice you receive on here is worth the paper it's written on.
Your experiences are worth shed loads to others, including the f'ups - live and learn.
Wouldn't YOU rather learn by someone else's mistakes? So would they.

'78 Bay, 2 litre 091 box, EJ20 NA & the ashtray's on the 'right' side.
I don't lean forward for hills any more Grin

Bugger, missed out on "Live fast, die young"

jp · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:21 am Post subject:

Neat little set up that not too dissimilar from what I'm going for Grin

Must say I do Love

your bus, great colour and looks super straight.
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beetleseb · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:09 am Post subject:

Hi

Cheers, the colours are ford ivory for the top half and a mitsibishi blue on the lower. The paints not great I want to redo it soon. Its not too bad but not what I want.

Luckly cheltenham rads fixed my rad for £15 so my little crescent was treated to the roar of a diesel last night.

Iorn out any problems today and go for a slow drive!

Seb
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jerry79 · Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 7:00 pm Post subject:

any chance of some underside pics?
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Coen · Wannabe Joined: 06 Nov 2007 Posts: 9 Location: Nijmegen

Hello Seb,

I've read your post(your van is really nice btw). I've been wanting to make a similar set up just like yours. You mention that you used a Peugeot 306 V6 radiator. When i checked Nissens site, there is no Peugeot 306 V6 radiator available. Did you perhaps mean another Peugeot model, or maybe i didn't search right at Nissens...

Anyway, could you tell me what model Peugeot and which radiator?

That would be a great help!

Thanks,

Coen, The Netherlands

beetleseb · Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:57 am Post subject:

sorry its 406 v6 rad

A mate has just bought a slightly better one, which the inlet + outlet tubes can spin 180deg. I'll try and work out what that is too
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