RS Motorsport :: Classic Speed Restored

I have a Mk1 Escort that has just had a 2 litre pinto fitted, which is going well, but the temp seems to be running a little high. The car currently has an engine fan which originally went in alone, and the temp whilst moving sat at around 2/3, maybe a little under. When in traffic, it shot straight up to about 3/4 almost straight away. I installed a decent thermo fan which made absolutely no appreciable difference at all. The car has an RS2000 radiator installed.

The temp gauge used to sit on about 1/3 with the old 1300 kent installed, so I think the gauge should be fine.

Please forgive my ignorance or lack of escort knowledge, but given that the setup isn't too much different to an RS2000, I would have thought that the temps shouldn't be so high. There is a hell of a lot of heat under the bonnet from the extractors etc, and I guess that there isn't anywhere for it to get out, is this a common problem?

I thought about doing the holes in the front panel to let more air in and maybe wrapping the exhaust, and the plan was to install an alloy radiator, but just wanted to see what I could do in the short term to cool things down a bit.

Thermostat working properly ?

What condition is the rad in ?

2 or 3 row rad core ?

fan cowl fitted ?

Fan distance from rad ?

Buy a laser temp gun off ebay to check the accuracy of the gauge. Top hose vs bottom hose temp etc

Yeah, you would expect the thermofan to be right like that. It is a push thermo, not a pull, pushing air from outside into the engine bay ?

Measure head temp with the laser as well.

No luck with the laser temp sadly, but the gauge was sitting over 2/3, the top rad hose was barely even warm, and the bottom hose was quite hot (I guess as you'd expect) Seems unusual that the top hose would be so cool?

Bit hard to diagnose at the moment, since the thermo went on and battery went flat, I think the battery might be shagged. I hooked it up to my valiant, let it charge up for an hour, then took it for a spin, with the intent to get some RPM into the alternator and charge the battery up. It ran fine for about 5 minutes, then lost all power, flat as a tack. But then oddly, a quick jump start and it ran fine again.

My experience is the pinto sensor works as is with Mk1 gauges.

If you replace the thermostat, put it in a pot of water, boil it up and monitor temperature to check opening, before installing it.

Front panel openings are enough for a pinto.

Is the radiator faired in properly, or are there gaps around it for the air to go where it please ?

The only replacement sensors I found to read properly (pinto in MK2) were from Burton power - part no. is XTT14 & supposedly OE.
Local sensors bought according to listed part no's either hardly moved the gauge, or sent gauge off the scale.

Cheers