Tackling the cooling system was meant to be a fairly straightforward affair, but this is me we’re talking about here. Last week I took a long way around of missed turnings and going back on myself to get to Yeovil to drop off the Corsair radiator at Rayson Radiators for them to recondition. In the afternoon they called back with the price and that they may get it done by the Saturday (in 2 days). So that evening in the garage I decided to prepare the engine for flushing by removing the thermostat housing on the inlet manifold only to shear one of the 2 bolts. Calmly, I set about drilling the broken nut before stopping for the evening and leaving it for a couple more days.
The radiator was ready for collection by the Friday afternoon but I chose to collect on the Saturday, this time taking a more direct route to Yeovil. This was the most expensive part of the resurrection and hopefully the most effective to cure all the overheating problems I encountered before the Corsair was laid up all those years ago.
Sunday had rolled around and I carefully took the time to finish sorting out the broken nut on thermostat housing even if I had to use a metric tap to cut a new thread and then hunt around for a bolt to fit. So, with the thermostat housing refitted and dodgy old gaskets glued in place with old sealant I got to flush the engine block. All seemingly cleaned out the radiator was refitted with the electric fan and then the water system topped up. The only leak was from the thermostat housing due to the poor quality seal, but it would have to come off again to re-fit a new thermostat and ‘new’ gaskets which came through the post from Burton Power a few days later.
My thanks also goes to John Midwood for his advice on sending me to Raysons after talking himself out of a simple fix the hole on the bottom tank job.
The next step at this point had been arranged…