Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Morgan Roadster - underneath

Could these be air-conditioner radiators? They look nothing like the Lightweight Roadster oil coolers!

Phill

Ah yes Phill....well spotted. The Roadster I saw at the factory has aircon fitted together with a pair of alloy louvered plated riveted to the rear top of the bonnet.

So, air con, that's could be the answer.

How to have l'air con with an aircon in a Mog' when the tubes will get out...

(sorry for this attempt for a multi-lingual joke, I >>>>>>>>)

So you could be cool all the way to the first speed bump!

I couln't drive my Lightweight Roadster down my drive as the sump grounded, I swapped to a Mulbery high clearance sump and then the chassis cross member grounded.

These air-con radiators are an accident waiting to happen. It would be interesting to see what happens when they get knocked off!

Phil, You are quite correct the Roadster is fitted with air con. Better than knocking off the oil cooler pipes and emptying the sump all over the road. It needs some type of protection attached to the underside, but I am not sure if anyone has done it.

Neil

Graham, to be honest, I have no idea .

I'm not being smart, but I hear comments made about Badges wrecking the air flow as well, but our temp gauge sits at normal which is good enough for me. Things may be different in Hotter climes.

The oil may run hotter due to the deflector and the loss of 60% of the Honeycomb Sump Baffles with our Mulfab conversion, but we don't have a gauge for that one?

DaveW has a full floor pan fitted so may have a better idea and is more likely to know the answer to such things.

If that's the standard aircon set up, I'm astonished at the vulnerability, It needs adapters to lift the unions and pipes. protection is all well and good, but anything bolted between the chassis rails may cause the rails to distort if it impacts anything substantial, so it's really about measured risk. There are companies out there who specialise in fitting aircon to cars and I'm sure that they could find a solution.
e.g. http://www.claytoncc.co.uk/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

I fitted an undertray to my Roadster mainly to limit the amount of road dirt which comes at the engine, and to reduce the chances of anything tangling with the alternator drive belt which is exposed. It's fitted in a way which will allow some distortion without affecting the chassis - penny washer clamps on the chassis edge, plus a couple of small through bolts. I then went on to fit an aluminium plate between the overrider brackets to protect the rack and gaiters from road dirt, and this mated up to the spoiler rather well. So this separates the airflow underneath - the spoiler limits this and deflects air at the radiator lower tank. It does run cooler in hot weather, but this is a judgement on the gauge position. Too cool is not a good thing anyway, and the Roadster doesn't seem to run hot, like the Plus8's do.

Anything in front of the radiator will reduce efficiency, including the radiator bars and the mesh grille - probably by 20%, but no grille = no protection from flying stones etc, so again it's a balance. Badges will add to this, and a full set will probably mask 10% of the rad and upset the airflow, but none of this is critical unless it causes a problem.
The sump will play a minor part of cooling, but only when at speed.

Dave,

Many thanks for the comprehensive reply. I am also astonished by the vulnerability and the factory should be ashamed of allowing such a poor design to even be considered, let alone leave the factory on customer's cars. I suspect that this car was over £50K when new, so one would have expected a sound and decent design.

Neil

As regards badges - mounting the badge bar 'upside down' lowers the badges reducing the negative effect on cooling. On a bumpered car it also puts the badge mounting bolts in a place which is harder for those with light fingers to remove them...

Cheers,

You're all very cynical to believe that the Morgan Car Co. would fit such an amateurish arrangement. I've looked closely at the pipes in the photo. They are clearly washing machine pipes - this car has had a third party washer/drier fitted. Very useful on long camping holidays. The extra weight over the rear axle raises the front of the car so the pipes are quite high enough to not cause problems at all.