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i am looking for all the metal cooling tubes and both the coolant tanks for my 71 Pantera. my stuff is original and should be replaced. if any of you guys have upgraded to stainless new stuff and have serviceable stock component's, please let me know ASAP.

the radiator is going to a shop this week to get checked out. i may be buying a fancy aluminum one one way or another!
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Just a thought, 6559's tubes were perfectly fine on the inside, thanks to the anti-rust in antifreeze, and just had some light rust on the outside. They cleaned up easily and I powdercoated them. Same for the pressure swirl tank. (BTW, be careful when you powdercoat the tank as the neck is just soldered on.)

The overflow tank, however, was rusted from the inside out at the top. Reach in with a finger and you s/b able to feel it. This makes sense since it is never filled and any condensation just sits on the metal. Because of this, it will be hard to find a good used one.
quote:
You can also replace the long tubes under the car with copper tubing.

Yes, and while it doesn't rust, it is a great heat sink and radiator and I've been told it is worse than stock steel in this regard.

I wonder if carbon fiber tubing would work? Sure doubt it would have the same heat radiating properties of metal, but who knows.

Larry
quote:
Originally posted by accobra:
Being in the HVAC and Plumbing business ..I have often wondered if copper tube with some type of FINNS or PEX tubing might work to disapate the heat in its path under the car to help with keeping the car cool.

Ron


I love passive heat radiation and bet you're right. Can you buy anything to 'line' the outside of the pipes/tubes already in place?
Well let see ..as I see it with off the shelf material a company caleld TRAC PIPE makes a flexible Stainless Steel tubing ... this is used for gas pipe but holds the pressure in excess of what we need and the area of the outside has to be easily double to displace twice the heat given off a pipe that size and its thin wall tubing so it may be even better.

The second option is welding on fins to what we already have the steel pipe ..but too time consuming.

just a thought ... 9138 has no cooling issues at all with all stock components .. except a need radiator with sucker fans and I wired the fans to run manually if needed.

Ron
if the surface of the flex pipe is shaped (i am assuming radially) so as to double the area of a "smooth" pipe, then there has to be an inner pipe surface that is not smooth, and the lack of smoothness has to result in increased friction leading to a substantial increase in resistance to fluid flow. hence less flow per unit time, hence less heat exchange per unit time, hence less cooling per unit time.

so, do you really gain anything????

but, if the pipe could be shaped with lengthwise exterior "corregations" a whole different story arises, an easy doubling of exterior cooling area with a smooth inner surface, obviously the rate of heat exchange will increase. kind of like a semiconductor heat sink.

if you can get such a shaped tube, the only logical place for it would be the two under chassis coolant lines. this of course would result in a large amount of heat radiating into the passenger compartment, but with micro glass insulating beads incorporated into the undercoating the heat transfer should be able to be reduced very substantially.

nazgul
I have been looking at a finned pipe here locally from aluminum to run under the car. I will need to weld fittings on the end. I need to take exact measurements but it I think it is close to the internal diameter of the cooling tubes. The aluminum fins are short but the fins also exist inside the tubes. I doubt I need the extra cooling but I figured why not!

Gary
"lack of smoothness has to result in increased friction leading to a substantial increase in resistance to fluid flow. hence less flow per unit time, hence less heat exchange per unit time, hence less cooling per unit time."

I have to say I see your point but when I go to the calculation table supplied by the manufacturer and the table for std tubing .... they are using the same GPM, BTU per hour and Velocity for the end result of delivering a product ... so maybe there is no resistance or slow down of the fluid at the end ?? it was only a thought ... as per what was originally spec steel pipe ... it was probably the best choice...because with the correct anitfreeze with the correct anit corrosion properties ..those tubes would last in excess on 30 years ...hey they did already. LOL

Ron
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