Radiator woes

[Richard van der Hoff]

Hi all, thanks for all the suggestions so far. Lots of advice to the 
effect that running the trans without its cooling would be a bad plan - 
noted, although etka sure makes it look like the same trans is used 
without any extra cooling in other models. Still, we don't want to fry 
the trans halfway up an alpine pass, so we won't be doing that :).

For those that queried it, yes on this car the trans fluid comes forward 
to an air-cooled oil cooler which is about the bottom 4cm of the 
radiator. One line goes into the back of the radiator, near the plastic 
end tank, and the other into the bottom of the radiator on the other 
end. Not sure offhand which line is which.

Also plenty of suggestions to get an external oil cooler. Hadn't 
occurred to us tbh, mainly because I think that people just don't 'do' 
aftermarket oil coolers over here (except in racing circles, where they 
are super-$).

It occurred to us last night that in a pinch, the oil cooler part could 
probably be removed from the bottom of the old radiator, allowing it to 
be mounted elsewhere as an external cooler - with the added bonus that 
we won't need to replace the hoses.

At the moment, however, we're back to looking at trying to repair the 
old rad - probably by threading a bit of piping into the broken section. 
Tony, any idea what you and your friend found to thread in? We've found 
something which is a reasonable fit but could do with being a little 
tighter - we're worried that once the system gets up to pressure, the 
pipe will come flying out again, with consequent coolant and humour failure.

Cheers

Richard



On 10/08/11 23:03, Tony Hoffman wrote:
> I see two possibilities. Assuming you have one with plastic end tanks,
> you could thread a piece of pipe or tube into the broken section. BTDT
> on an expansion tank for a friend. It was done in a pinch intended to be
> replaced. He drove with it that way for at least five years.
> Possibility two, what the others have suggested, and external cooler and
> manual radiator. Just out of curiosity, what side do the lines run into,
> is it by the hoses, or on the opposite side?
> I have one on an 84 non-turbo automatic parts car, but it's 450 miles
> away from me in Oklahoma :(
> Tony
>
> On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 9:06 AM, Richard van der Hoff
> <quattro at rvanderhoff.org.uk <mailto:quattro at rvanderhoff.org.uk>> wrote:
>
>     Hi all,
>
>     You may recall I'm working on a 1984 Audi 200 turbo. For the record,
>     the idea is to drive it to Romania on a BABE-style banger rally in a
>     month's time...
>
>     Anyway, the radiator has suffered the snapped-off-top-hose-connector
>     disaster.
>
>     A bit of googling and checking the archives suggests:
>       - any sort of home-made repair is likely to last about 5 minutes
>       - Audi made a repair kit which would last about 2 minutes longer
>     than the home-made version
>       - The general wisdom is to replace the radiator.
>
>     Not thrilled at throwing yet more money at this project, but fine, a
>     replacement seems the best bet. Except... I can't find one.
>
>     The particular problem is that the OEM radiator has an oil cooler in
>     the bottom for the auto trans.
>
>     Etka suggests this was present on "models with towing capability".
>     It also seems to suggest that it was superceded by a radiator
>     without the oil cooler... So one option seems to be to block off the
>     lines to the transmission, replace with a normal radiator, and hope
>     it lasts to Romania.
>
>     Otherwise I could try to repair the original, or try harder to
>     source a replacement.
>
>     Any experience or suggestions from the list?
>
>     Thanks!
>     _________________________________________________
>     quattro mailing list
>     http://www.audifans.com/__mailman/listinfo/quattro
>     <http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/quattro>
>     http://www.audifans.com/kb/__List_information
>     <http://www.audifans.com/kb/List_information>
>
>