Time to think about getting away

[Spoggle]

Sun is shining and I keep looking at the old caravan and wanting to get away. But then I look at the old Surf and worry. The rad isn't looking too good with a couple of little leaks along the top tank. Cant see any water coming out but have got a couple of discoloured spots where the antifreeze has escaped. I fitted an extra ATF cooler last year and was wondering if I should just replace the rad with the one for the auto box or if the manual rad would be better. Also any one got any idea where I could get hold of a vent for the bonnet, most that I've seen are just stick on jobs for the boy racers and not ones that will work. To the best of my knowledge my cylinder head is still in tact and it would be nice if I could keep it that way a bit longer.
As always any advice will be much appreciated.

Cheers Spoggle

[logey79]

ebay normally has a few vents and scoop combos off the imprezas, but not seen many proper vents selling without the scoop though.

[coolsv650]

Sun is shining and I keep looking at the old caravan and wanting to get away. But then I look at the old Surf and worry. The rad isn't looking too good with a couple of little leaks along the top tank. Cant see any water coming out but have got a couple of discoloured spots where the antifreeze has escaped. I fitted an extra ATF cooler last year and was wondering if I should just replace the rad with the one for the auto box or if the manual rad would be better. Also any one got any idea where I could get hold of a vent for the bonnet, most that I've seen are just stick on jobs for the boy racers and not ones that will work. To the best of my knowledge my cylinder head is still in tact and it would be nice if I could keep it that way a bit longer.
As always any advice will be much appreciated.

Cheers Spoggle

Well if the water is not dropping you can be pretty sure the head is OK, radiators will cost about £130 from fleabay, you could try to solder the leaks, but if you've not attempted it before you might just end up with a big hole!

There was a post on here about the pro's and cons of a separate ATF rad, for the record i've just plumbed mine in series with the existing one.

hope it helps

[Tallyman]

If you decide to replace the rad with one off a manual then you'll probably need to increase the size of the ATF cooler, as the one in the auto rad does do a reasonable job in keeping the fluid cool in normal driving and most of thje smaller coolers added in line will not be man enough to do the job on their own.

Another way would be to get a radiator shop to recon yours and to shorten the existing ATF cooler so that it exits short of the bottom pipe outlet, thereby alleviating one the the problems of the original design which was to restrict the flow of water from the bottom outlet.

As for bonnet vents, if you do put some/one on, make sure it exits towards the windscreen as that will aid the flow of air out of the engine bay. Another trick is to raise the back edge of the bonnet to allow air to escape that way. That is a cheaper and easier alternative as it only means adding washers to the space between the bonnet and the hinge bracket, although it will look as if the bonnet isn't closing properly.

Alternatively you can fit a bonnet fan like I did.

EDIT: link to my original write up on fitting a bonnet fan -

http://www.hiluxsurf.co.uk/forums/sh...ght=Bonnet+fan

[MudSurfer]

ebay normally has a few vents and scoop combos off the imprezas, but not seen many proper vents selling without the scoop though.

Got mine from motormania...

http://www.performancecentre.co.uk/p...=AC4&LN=251000