ARA 2770 S radiator shroud

[Peter Laidler]

Bit of tech advice sought chaps.

About to replace the tatty lower rad shroud on my Mk2 S, ARA 2770 with a replacement. Is there any modification that I need to make to the replacement shroud that might make my life easier in the future.

One thing I will do is to drill a drain hole 1/2" in from each end to allow any water to drain out. This seems to have been a cause of the rusting at each end!

Don't worry..... Old tatty shroud will be repaired/restored and kept for future use

Thanks

[floormanager]

Peter
After losing most of my skin trying to get the rad out and the hassle of removing the fan with the rad still in, I admitted defeat and cut the back corner off so I can lift the rad out with the bottom cowl and fan in place.

Paul

[agricola]

I have been thinking about this and in particular the 2 5/16 unf bolts on the support bracket 12 A293. As most folks know the one at the front is ok but the back one has to be accessed through the slot in the inner wing. Mine is particularly difficult as it has Goodrich brake pipes which are bulky.
Then I read that a lot of minis only had one bolt fitted by garages when sent in for repair! Now I don't agree with that but it did start me thinking. I thought supposing the back bolt was converted into a close fitting dowel leaving only the front one to tighten. For those without machine tools you could use a stepped clutch strap bolt (2A3659) with the head sawn off and drill the support bracket to be a tight fit. You could make a strap so the remaining bolt traps the lot or drill it out and tap it larger.
Thoughts?
My top tip for removing those pesky 1/4 unf shroud bolts. Take off the dogs bone stabiliser loosen the remote you can then rock the engine forward giving more room.

[Peter Laidler]

Thinking on my feet about the accessibility of the bottom REAR bolt I wonder if it wouldn't be a whole lot easier to replace BOTH bottom bolts with button headed bolts? These are tightened using an allen key - or in this situation a long allen key.

Fit suitable sleeves into the rubber mounts to avoid crushing them to replicate the standard shouldered bolts.

I have in fact used the shallow button bolts on the top bracket-to- upper rad shroud. I'm going to look at this for the bottom....... when the wind and rain stops!

Thanks for the idea Agricola

Added later: I don't suffer most of the usual radiator accessibility problems due to the fact that I learned early in my mini owning youth, to remove the inner wing radiator ducting. Thanks for all comments. More welcome as I can see another short tech article coming on........

[agricola]

My only concern Peter is an Allen key only has 6 sides which means you have to move it 60 degrees to get another bite with a bolt and a bi-hexagon socket spanner you only need 30 degrees. I use modern 5/16 bolts with a reduced head 7/16 as opposed to 1/2 AF.
Instead of cutting away shroud could you drill 2 3/4 holes and use a long 1/4 drive socket? Then fit 2 bungs?
I think these threads and discussions are useful perhaps Mark could put them under tips for easier engine removal replacement?

[Maddog]

Hi Agricola, the idea you came up with of converting the rear bolt to a dowel is a good modification that has been proven on rally cars for decades apparently. I read about the very same mod here in Australia a few years ago and have modified my road car by making a dowel with a shallow head that just protrudes through the radiator mounting bracket. I found that a long dowel made the assembly too hard to fit.
I did the mod about three years ago and it has worked perfectly. I highly recommend it to simplify radiator fitting and removal.
Maddog

[Stopped-again]

For a couple of days now I have been racking my ageing brain to remember where I’d read something about this problem on the forum before, finally all the cogs have aligned and I’ve remembered. Peter look at dearg1275’s build thread in “Our projects” look for “next project 67 997 cooper and go to page 29.