Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Radiator Blues

After 14 years and nearly 100,000 km we had a radiator literally explode.

The radiator is an original Plus 4 2012 with aircon version so it is essentially the same as the Roadster, with aircon, of the same period.

We are on holidays in Sardinia, not a bad place to be stuck I must admit. We had passed over some pretty bad road due to a deviation for roadworks on the outskirts of Cagliari and that may have contributed to the failure.

As luck, in the midst of bad luck, would have it we were less than 200 metres from the appartment that we had rented in the centre of town. Most of the coolant was instantly dumped out of a huge break and sprayed out of the louvres and all over the windscreen. Fortunately the hood was up because of the amount of luggage that we had in the car.

The Sardenian people are just wonderful and we had a number rushing to our aid; offers of water, and then when the scale of the problem revealed itself, calls to mechanics and a tow truck organised etc. Our host arrived and she helped Alis carry the luggage to the appartment while I waited for the tow truck.

We were later loaned a car by our host and continued to two other booked locations while I frantically organised a replacement radiator.
Alis had to fly home from Olbia (she had to return for appointments and her 94 year old mother) and I returned to Cagliari to return the loan car and await repair of the Morgan.

With a little help from my friends a replacement Mulfab radiator was located at the Morgan dealership in Milan. It was new but when fitted was discovered to have a pinhole in one of the welds so it was replaced and subsequently repaired and put in the store. It did not have the mounting kit but Neale at Mulfab had one on the shelf.

8 days latter the parts have arrived in Cagliari and, as I write this, they are being fitted (properly, I hope). In any case when I get back I will take the car to my trusted Morgan mechanic to check it out.

A year or so ago I had a small leak from the little top spigot 'O' ring and that was ultimately fixed but I nearly replaced the radiator then. I now wish I had.

My recommendation to anyone that has the original plastic Morgan radiator and it is more than 10 years old on a car that has done almost 100,000 km (60,000 miles) would be to replace it if you are planning any long trips to out of the way places.

Sorry to hear your misfortune, and hopefully it's finally fixed.

I would add that I had the original factory radiator go on my 2008 Roadster at 4,500 miles. They are worth checking on a regular basis, but increasingly so if planning longer trips, as availability can certainly be an issue.

Unfortunately it would be impossible to preview this problem with any sort of check. The car had a service a couple of weeks before our triip and everything seemed ok. If there had been any sort of leak we would have seen it. This was simply a result of stress of chassis and body flex on plastic that was only ever intended to be used in a modern car.
After 14 years it had probably become rigid and brittle.

If your plastic Morgan rad lasted 60,000 miles it must be a manufacturing error................ because it must be the only one to reach that mileage/last that long...............😂😂😂
My Morgan rad lasted 30,000 miles and 18 years, my new mulfab rad should outlast the car....!!!!!

I think it's all part of the fun being a development technician/test driver for Morgan......
Thankfully the number of upgraded replacement parts, designed by some very clever folk, for trad Morgans, is incredible and extensive......👍🏼

I hope it didn't spoil your hols too much.

🇬🇧🇬🇧

So as a rough rule of thumb we can say any original radiator over 15 years and/or over 50,000 should be replaced.
It has a certain cost but having to pay a tow truck to pick you up miles from anywhere has a certain cost too.

The second half of our holiday went well due to the generosity of the people we delt with. Not the same as being in the Morgan but it could have gone much worse.

I was almost pleased when mine failed at under 25,000 miles with just a small leak from close to drain plug but definitely from the adjacent plastic to aluminium interface. Thankfully SiFab were still in existence and Simon provided a great service literally making one from scratch within a day and having it packed up and delivered in short order. Sadly we are only left with Mulfab now who I believe still shape the upper mount bracket to tank to allow a simple semi circular weld which has been known to tear the tank surface over time. This compared to Simons M shaped bracket allowing a longer welded seam to better spread the load as below.



Ironically he previously worked for Mulfab so maybe picked up on the need for this early on.

Mine did this and "They all do that Sir" applies here eventually. The fact that yours took so long to fail was because the roads driven were free of potholes.