Antique & Classic Cars Blog

TR6 radiator (on its side) is about 20% smaller.

These pages have covered a few aspects of the 215-V8-in-a-TR6 project. With a little firewall massaging, new motor mounts, custom passenger’s side exhaust manifold (like the driver’s side one, from a Buick 300 V8), custom alternator bracket, remote oil filter, re-routed steering shaft and some other tweaks, it’s fitting together pretty well.

TR6 radiator taller but narrow. Buick Special radiator built for 215 engine.

The original TR6 radiator had inadequate capacity, so I sourced a proper 215 rad at French Lake Auto Parts and had it rebuilt. It was too wide to fit where the original piece went, so it now sits in front of that. I made brackets and the photos here show them installed.

Front side has slight lip to guide installation.

With the radiator moved forward, I needed another fan spacer to keep the fan close for good airflow (air draw) through it. Here are those pieces.

Lotta spacing to bring fan right behind radiator.

Because of how the 215 radiator fits in place, it will take quite a juke to get the lower radiator hose down off the water pump, under a crossmember, back up to the outlet and then redirected 90 degrees to mount up. Carlberg Radiator, which re-cored the 215 rad, suggested mocking up a sample and taking it to an auto supply store to see if something off the shelf might fit. Otherwise, there’s flexible “universal” hose–have to be very flexible–or setups like a piece of hose, a section of pipe and another length of hose.

Lower hose will have to make a reverse “s” to fit.

One day at a time….

This entry was posted on Friday, September 7th, 2007 at 11:07 pm and is filed under Car parts, Car stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.