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Alfetta Radiator Sprung a Leak

2K views 9 replies 5 participants last post by  dbest 
#1 ·
My Alfetta GT radiator sprung a leak. Many years ago I removed the slow intermittent yellow radiator fan and threw it away to replace it with a very efficient one held on with plastic through rod tie thingies. You have probably guessed it. One of the through rods is not so snug anymore and coolant is leaking out and down the radiator. Good thing it is one of the top ones. The temp went over the middle 175 it normally sits and then back down. I filled it back up and got home no problem. I was filling and bleeding this weekend and let it cycle through one fan-on cycle and noticed some wisps of vapor out of the radiator fins. A closer look revealed a green wet stream going down the radiator to the bottom of the lower radiator support and some pooling down there. Never seemed to have dripped onto the ground, though.

Anyway, I've removed it and will bring it to some shop near me. I'm looking close by, Concord, Martinez, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek. Anyone with suggestions, let me know. But what I really wanted to ask was, does anyone know the extent of damage that one of these plastic through rods will inflict if allowed to wiggle around for sometime? Would it be a little hole they would weld up in a jiffy? Or is this core damaged and in need of some more extensive work?

And do most shops not want to deal with some repair welding and try to suggest replacing the core and re-weld on my side tanks? And is that not such a bad idea? Are there matching cores for our radiators? And finally, what sort of difference in price would there be for some hole repair vs a new core welded to my side tanks.

Forgive my ignorance, but I've never had to deal with something like this before.

Thanks,
 
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#3 ·
So my radiator is with Berkeley Radiator Works in Berkeley. They will be looking it over in the next day or two. If he can fix it, he will. If not he says he has cores of the right size. In fact he found his stamp on my radiator and says it's his. Then I remembered I had a collision in this car and the body guy in Berkeley had to deal with the radiator and so it must have been him.

He also scolded me on using those plastic through bolts in the radiator fins. I should probably spend a little time making a bracket to hold the fan to the radiator. It isn't a Spal fan, but a copy of one. It probably has the same mounting configuration as one. So, are there any threads showing what others have done for making a bracket out of some aluminum bar or something? I'd appreciate some leads or some pictures or diagrams.

Thanks,
 
#4 ·
The upside of the plastic through bolts is that there is no gap between the fan and the radiator. Most brackets leave a gap and some of the air just circulates around the fan instead of going through the radiator.
 
#5 ·
When I removed the fan, I can see that the whole fan has caused some bending in the cooling fins. There is a clear outline of the circle of the fan on the fins.

I did find some threads on fan mounting. The simplest which I had remembered reading was some aluminum stock, maybe an inch or two wide. One bar each on the top and bottom. My fan is 10" and I remember it wouldn't line up well on one side. I see reference to someone using an 11" fan and another using a 12" fan, but that might be on a GTV6. I think the Alfetta radiators are a little smaller.

Has anyone fitted 11 or 12" fans and how close do they come to the edges of the radiator?

Thanks,
 
#6 ·
When the radiator is in good nick (which it will be after your man does his work) the original fan setup, with cowl, should work perfectly well...I'd just find one, make sure it runs, and bolt it right back on.
Why not just do that?
Some of the home-made mounts I've seen are a bit ugly.
 
#8 ·
Thanks for those suggestions, but I'm not interested in going back to the stock setup. I can certainly just wait for it to come back to measure the mounting studs, which are still there. I should have measured before I left him the radiator. If someone has an Alfetta radiator handy I would appreciate the measurements of the 4 studs.

Thanks,
 
#9 ·
$450 for a re-core and $175 for a repair loosing 6 to 7 tubes and no guarantee it will work. Ouch. I think I'll have to go used radiator this time and see about an aluminum radiator in the future. I know a GTV6 one was recently commissioned, but the Alfetta has some differences at the bottom.

Not sure if that is the going rate these days as there are very few radiator re-core shops remaining. He started mentioning "dimple tubes" for $50 extra. All the Ferraris have them, he says. Maybe he thinks I have deep pockets. Oh well, I have to pick where I spend the cash these days.
 
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