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Re: Ultimate cooling <perhaps>

From: Theo
email: theo@gamma.fslife.co.uk
Date: 27 Oct 2006
Time: 15:34

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When I first bought my Gamma it used to run quite hot all the time. I assumed "it's a Gamma, they all do that" and lived with it for years and just avoided driving on hot days. There's not many of those in England anyway! One hot summer's day I had to drive through London for an open day at Barry Waterhouse Engineering. I got stuck in traffic in temperatures over 30 degrees and had to put the heater on full blast to cool the engine so the temperature inside the car was only slightly less than in a Turkish bath. When I eventually got to Barry's having sweated a million buckets, I opened to bonnet to coll the car down a bit. A man walked up and said to me "is it running a bit hot?". I said "yes but it's a Gamma, they all do that". I explained that I had changed thermostats, tried a thermostat modification etc etc but it was still always running on the brink of boiling and he said "change your radiator and it'll be fine". He used to work for Lancia and he said Gamma radiators tended to fur-up very quickly so they used to change them and the cars were fine. So I changed to a second had radiator that looked much worse on the outside than mine and the car was immediately better. I shortly afterwords changed the radiator again to a re-cored one supplied by Jack and the car was even better. In fact of all the problems I have with my car, overheating is no longer one of them. So I'd say your garage is probably right and changing the radiator to a new one will make a difference. The price of £140 is not bad, I was quoted "about £120" to re-core a smaller Fiat radiator about a year ago. What I would really like to do is find a modern aluminium radiator to fit in the Gamma. There must be one about the right size that can be made to fit. But I have other work to do on the Gamma now....

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