8 July 2008
Session 267 -Alloy coolant hoses
My alloy hard hoses turned up this week from Pro Alloy. I had sent discussed my requirements, sent a template and measurements of what I needed about 3 weeks ago but these guys are quite busy. These pipes travel from the front of the engine to the rear of the engine bay above the exhaust manifold along side the chassis rail and having to clear various items on the way and quite close leaving little room for margin of error in both my specifications and the fabrication. I was expecting problems! I decided to fit these tonight and fantastic they fit. I spent about 2 hours doing this as I had to do some drilling and even had to fettle the bonnet to fit around the pipes.
Photo of the alloy hoses running along side the engine as close to the top and far away as possible from the exhaust manifold.I have covered the hoses in heat reflective material. The larger pipe is 19.2mm and I have P-cliped this to the chassis rail at three points. This is the hose from the header/expansion tank to the bottom hose tee. The smaller pipe is tied to the the large one with stainless steel tie wraps. This smaller hose is 10mm and is the radiator overflow to the top of the header/expansion tank.
This photo shows how close the pipe is to the master brake cylinder, no more than 2mm ! You can also see the brake line is close also.
A bit further along the same pipe. You can see the clutch master, more room underneath this but to the top of the picure is the rear of the cylinder header and that is close also, especially as the engine moves under throttle. I think it should be okay.
I discovered that I could not put the bonnet back on! The pipes were preventing it from locating down even though the pipes are running along the inside edge. It would seem that the flange on the tub sides is 46mm but the flange on the bonnet is 54mm so the flange on the bonnet invades the engine bay by some 8mm at the worst point. So I did the obligatory measure twice and cut once with my dremel on the bonnet return flange. Now the bonnet fits.
I located the header/expansion tank in its position as dictated by the hard hoses. Erm, the top touches the mesh in the bonnet vents, well it certainly cannot go any higher than that, a bit of a fluke.
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