[Che]

I used this tape stuff on my old FJ45's extractors to try stop so much heat in the cab. Wouldn't recommend for serious offroading, you gotta keep em clean or the headers rot away underneath - sand and salt ate mine alive... dirt and moisture wouldn't be that much better. Put it on with gloves too - stray fibreglass strands will shit your hands for a week if you don't.

[alien]

che_guitarra wrote:

I used this tape stuff on my old FJ45's extractors to try stop so much heat in the cab. Wouldn't recommend for serious offroading, you gotta keep em clean or the headers rot away underneath - sand and salt ate mine alive... dirt and moisture wouldn't be that much better. Put it on with gloves too - stray fibreglass strands will shit your hands for a week if you don't.

good advice - thanks mate!

theyre certain to get coated in dust and mud. i cant help but think this would help insulate them, but you're right, it'll just hold moisture a touch longer... can you paint over the tape? something like killrust etc that has a primer built in? would be a good way to seal them up a bit better and have them look a bit more appealing.

i don't do beach stuff in mine so salt isnt as big of an issue.

[atari4x4]

lava wrap is the future.... http://www.heatshieldproducts.com/lava_wrap.php

there are some good products here http://www.heatshieldproducts.com/index.php

i would look at getting the headers ceramic coated & building a heat shield + insulating the inside of the bonnet.

the stock lining on the inside of my bonnet holds in so much heat that on the drive home from work at nights it doesn't get hot enough to dry out the moisture/dew on it.

[Che]

This is my old beast. Cab temps were killing me, so I taped up some new extractors, chucked them on and didn't even get a year outta them before trouble in paradise.... but, I was on the beach every weekend camping, dragging a tinny around, or generally running amok, flinging all sorts of crap into the engine bay. I kept her hosed and clean tho - no rust in this pic as you can see... just a header fail.

That said I reckon it was 10? better off inside at the worst of times

[MacDaddy]

buzbox wrote:

I'd get some fibreglass cosworth style bonnet vents and face them rearwards so it sucks out the hot air as apposed to forcing air in. I had them on my FJ20t bluebird and it looked good and worked very well..

Hmmm, i like the look and idea of these... i wonder if they come in a more flush with the bonnet design, so its mostly recessed... mines fine onroad, but after being offroad, lift the bonnet to connect the air compressor, and wow its hot under there, would be nice to have more airflow around the engine when its working hard offroad...

[TZAR]

alien wrote:

che_guitarra wrote:

I used this tape stuff on my old FJ45's extractors to try stop so much heat in the cab. Wouldn't recommend for serious offroading, you gotta keep em clean or the headers rot away underneath - sand and salt ate mine alive... dirt and moisture wouldn't be that much better. Put it on with gloves too - stray fibreglass strands will shit your hands for a week if you don't.

good advice - thanks mate!

theyre certain to get coated in dust and mud. i cant help but think this would help insulate them, but you're right, it'll just hold moisture a touch longer... can you paint over the tape? something like killrust etc that has a primer built in? would be a good way to seal them up a bit better and have them look a bit more appealing.

i don't do beach stuff in mine so salt isnt as big of an issue.

Paint them FIRST with a high temp paint. couple of coats let them burn in as per the directions and then wrap them. BUT after you wrap them go to the wreckers and hunt around under some modern cars for some flat heat sheilds for between the exhaust and the floor and get them in there to stop you burning your feet.

The wrapping does improve performance by keeping the air hotter and moving faster providing more scavenging but you will never notice the increase

[ajsr]

paint them in a good brand flat finish zinc paint. let it bake for a while and them wrap. the zinc will help kill the rust.

[eldo]

what ajsr says is the go i reckon, the zinc will sacrifice itself to the elements before the steel will. also make a heat sheild, i had to on my turbo cars years ago, stainless polished on the down side to deflect to the heat and some sort of insulated material on the top , my paint on my bonet used to burn from the heat until i did this heat shield thing

[stockman]

Is the motor overheating? If not just leave it.

[alien]

thanks guys... will do the paint first then wrap later.

stockman - yes it is getting warmer that it should - only when crawling or above say 100km/hr.

[stockman]

Have you dont the basics? Get your core cleaned, new hoses, thermostat etc?
What a kind of fan set up do you have? push or draw?

[ajsr]

big spotties???
if so thats most likely your issue
they delfect a massive amount of air away from your grille area at highway speeds

[alien]

yeh the problem started after going EFI... rad is only 9 months old, as are all the hoses, thermostat etc... fan is standard sierra one, pretty sure its draw??? thermo is mounted on the front of the rad and draws from front.

like i said though, the thermo fixes the low speed cooling issue, but doesnt get to the core problem that requires its use.

i can only think that the new extractor position after EFI conversion is the cause of the extra heat. The maruti radiators are about 15mm wider than sierra so should cool marginally better too.

[alien]

ajsr wrote:

big spotties???
if so thats most likely your issue
they delfect a massive amount of air away from your grille area at highway speeds

nope, only small ones - and you can see in this pic how the air would flow:

[MrRocky]

when your radiator gets as much dust through it as yours does it needs to be high pressured and the fins thoroughly cleaned regularly. You can adjust your front bonnet stops to sit up a bit and space the rear of the bonnet up slightly this should help but i think your problem is more to do with a dusty radiator and insufficient fan of sorts, maybe upgrade the fan or use a thermo like i do, i can get 14" fans for $65 if you want one. Make sure your car still has the little plastic spill tray under the radiator as well, this can cause probs in some cars when removed, but every car is different, dont forget you also have a dirty big bullbar in front of the radiator too

[alien]

fair point on the dust... i'll give it a blast out and see what happens. my bonnet is still lifted ever so slightly from when i had the weber - the rear of the bonnet is +5mm, and the front is about +8mm.

the 10" thermo i have works fine for slow, no need to go bigger.

i do still have the shroud around the engine fan and the little tray deflector thingo under the rad too.

[ajsr]

do you have a factory fan shroud?

[ajsr]

.b

[Built4thrashing]

The round thermos dont work good enough as they leave alot of radiator core un cooled. You need a shroud that causes the fan to pull air through the entire rad. Ive used fan and shroud from many different cars and they all work better then the round auto shop fans. Best fan was a cut up AU falconthermo. Its on PJzooks now and it fixed 90% of his problems. (The other 10% are driver related and can't be fixed)


B4T

[alien]

i still have the standard fan and shroud though - the thermo on the front just solves the slow-speed cooling issue... i still dont have a solution for high speed?

[alien]

ok just took the grille off and blasted the rad with the garden hose set to 'jet' - so pretty high pressure... got a fair bit of dust out of it... just kept blasting all over it until the water running out was clear, then blasted it some more to be sure!

i'll try go for a drive later and see how that changes things, if at all (although i'd say there was a good solid handful of mud spread on the driveway so should be some sort of difference).

[royce]

take your thermo off and go for a drive

[jonno_racing]

i never had a problem with radiator cooling untill i fitted a thermo with big shroud the shroud efectivly blocks the air flow. its fine i just need to use thermo more now. but it cools amazingly well now!

[alien]

royce wrote:

take your thermo off and go for a drive

cant take it off - its held on using the cable tie type things that come in the kit... but its manually switched - i only turn it on when it needs it. so ill see how it goes without it being turned on later this arvo - perth is forecast to get 38 degrees today, and 40 tomorrow - perfect weather to test it out.

[stockman]

Don't rely on not turning it on to make a differance, the fan could also be obstructing some flow.

[royce]

ill lay money that at speed its restricting flow, I had all kinds of trouble with overheating in my old Valiant with the fans on the front, switch em to teh back and they barley ever needed to turn on

you can buy the zip tie things from anywhere that sells fans

another useful mod is to change to a vit fan, they fit in the sierra shroud and move a lot more air

[atari4x4]

got any shielding around the radiator to force the air through it?

when i did my body lift i remade the rubber flaps that sit along side the radiator & made up one that went from my radiator support panel to the top tank on the radiator, not sure what the sierra's are like but if there are massive gaps the air will bypass the radiator.

[alien]

cool... alright worst comes to worst i'll take the thermo off and see what happens. (i'll wait till 4th jan to ensure stores are open to buy new ties).

atari - the barwork kind of acts like a shroud for the rad in that sense, and all standard ones are in place - but adding a bit more shroudyness between the grille and rad might be a good option.

[MrRocky]

you might find you need to take it to a rad shop to burn of the crap on the cooling fins or try some degreaser, i have had this prob with near new radiators before the dust stops the cooling like you wouldnt beleive, as for the thermo i wouldnt think you need one at all with an alloy radiator, im thinking of ditching mine and going to a crank fan.

[christover1]

Be careful if using high pressure to clean outsides of radiators.
It can flatten the cooling fins and block air flow.