Took the Darracq out on Sunday for a run with a whole lot of French cars starting with “D” for Delage. It all started well and on arrival at the starting point some 80Km from here I checked the underside and discovered an acceptable vintage sized oil stain on the tarmac certainly not the puddle previously deposited. We headed off on a rather circuitous route of 116 km to lunch, at about the 100km mark the Darracq started missing and as I was starting to hold everyone up I pulled over and discovered the radiator had turned into a sprinkler system, among other things dowsing the magneto.
There was not just one hole, there were many and the radiator still had “Bars Leaks” in it or should I say some. So more epoxy putty and having learned from my last episode on the side of the road as soon as the stuff was in place I started the engine to get it warm as a hot radiator sets the epoxy off and ensures I get a hot lunch.
It appears that the whole core is paper thin so another car off the road while I dig for copper.
I wonder: might we by now be rather wishful of having had a larger number of offspring – for purposes of onselling – in order to cover the cost of new radiator construction?
Mark,
It sounds as if you may be a candidate for a new core from the man in New Zealand. From memory your radiator is a German Silver integral surround with a soldered in honeycomb core – much the same as a 12/50. Don’t you have a Talbot radiator – if so would this substitute whilst the Darracq one is repaired even if it looks crappy?
The man in NZ makes good cores at a lower price than cores from the UK. It then needs a craftsman to fit it to the surround. The man I used for the 12/50 was recommended by the NZ guy and he did a very good job and removing a lot of dents at the same time. The whole job wasn’t cheap – around $3,500 all up if I remember correctly. Sounds as though the oil leaks are now acceptable. I took the T on the midwinter rally last weekend and its oil leaks weren’t too bad after having taken off the transmission cover, making and fitting new gaskets and copious amounts of sealant. Still there is room for improvement with a bit more attention – otherwise the car ran well.
Andrew