Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Plus Four, Supersport & Plus Six (CX & CXV Generation Vehicles) Fade Away And Radiate

Bonus point if anyone knows the group!

Anyway, the P6 is in for it’s annual service - a new rad fitted last year - just had a phone call and we are back again with another leaker.

Thought they would have solved the issue by now.

Apparently, warranty has ended but if it’s been replaced then it’s covered for another replacement, but told this is also coming to an end soon.

Problem is dealers are waiting for replacement rads from MMC so it’s off the road for now.

Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Blondie also did a cover version

Factory is also on shut down for two weeks and despite it July and August being busy months for the Morgan owner they also close the parts department for two week

The factory returned on Monday lthis week. my car is with service department this week.

Sorry to hear the news on the radiator.

There are quite a few low mileage cars for sale I bet some 5yr olds are on their first rad. Bad news for us all really. I think its a 1500 quid job for a rad change.

Do we know where and why these radiators are failing? Presumably the design has been changed by now, surely they can't be fitting replacements with the same vulnerabilities?

Had me on a goose chase with that one - couldn’t imagine Buddy Holly singling the Blondie song(written by Chris Stein)so looked it up. Different song.

Now Denis, Denis……

Considering how many Morgans have had failing radiators reported on this forum, including the original on my 4/4, it's pretty obvious that they were/are not fit for purpose. Brittle plastic mouldings are always going to fail eventually here at the front end of a sports car with stiffer than average suspension. However, so many are very low mileage garage queens wrapped in cotton wool, and those are yet to fail and may never fail if not driven.
The very first question I would suggest any prospective owner contemplating acquiring a Morgan should ask, would be: "Does it have plastic moulded parts to the radiator," and if it has - walk away OR adjust the purchase price to make allowance for replacement with a proper new aluminium radiator that is fit for purpose.

The Trads had a trad metal radiator until 05/06. Plastic tanks have been around a lot longer. And failing. I recall some BL cars had them in the 80s.

Some aluminum rads on Trads still fail, if the mounting bobbins are under tension. So fitting is important but chassis twist will always test the installation.

The CX thing should have been fixed years ago.

Radiators failing on a Morgan is a fact of life, regretable, but a fact of life, third party replacement aluminium radiators for Morgans have been available since the early 90's, so whilst it was a quite acute problem on the CX, it's also not uncommon on trads even before the introduction of plastic rads, obviously not as common as the CX issue but still a potential weakness, not surprising with Morgan firm suspension, flexing chassis and the state of our roads and sometimes underspecing requirements by Morgan. On two of my low mileage trads I had to replace the radiator, I even had to completely replace the exhaust system on my 4/4 at just over 3 years old, due to the baffles in the exhaust becoming detached and rattling around and it had only done 5000 miles. My kent engined 4/4 was always fracturing its manifold, in different places, oh the joys of Morgan ownership.

On the CX they now know its caused by thermal shock, and the primary impact of thermal shock on a CX radiator is structural cracking along welded seams and mounting points, resulting in sudden coolant leaks, Hopefully the software updates have reduced the impact of the thermal shock, I certainly noticed a dfference when the update was applied to my car, in the way the water temp, heating being available and radiator opening was controlled.

Many of these problems being created by ever increasing cleaner emission standards.requiring increasing more demanding and invariably more compilicated solutuions, not also helped when applied in a cost concious very finite resourced manufacturing environment. Emission standards that basically didn't exist for most of Europe before the adoption of unleaded fuel and Euro 1 in '92,all requiring increasingly more sophisticated eg warm up solutions. For example my 90's Mercedes automatics, held onto first gear to accelerate the warming of the engine, very noticeable in the winter, a frustrating solution for the first mile or so when starting from cold, all intended to reduce the level of polutants emitted on cold start up and with a cold engine........something not even considered in the 70's and 80's when designing engine cooling systems, except probably in California..