Alternative intercoolers

Hi

Got a 90 TD5 running a Dynachip map and was wondering about putting a bigger intercooler on but don’t fancy spending big bucks on something like an allisport or whatever as it’s just a farm Landy. Are there any other alternatives out there that you could get from a normal motor factors or breakers yard that would fit? I had wondered if there were any truck intercoolers that might do. I do know that with cars for example a lot of manufacturers use the same intercoolers etc... so maybe another manufacturer uses a bigger intercooler that will fit a TD5.

Ebay universal intercooler, and find one the right size/pipe config
Most are sub 100 quid, some come with pipes/hoses etc.

Serck from Paddocks or the Britpart ones are shockingly alright.

Tricky trying to use a different one as the IC mounts to the rad and space is fairly tight.

Had nothing but trouble with sereck it split 3 times before I gave up and bought an alisport one had no issues with it since
It split twice on the end cap welds gave up when it started leaking where cooling tubes join end cap

Same has been said for Allisport before!

All being hand made your bound to get **** ones with poor welding.

Buy what you can afford really.

Allisport on my 110 - done 45k miles on a heavily tuned engine.

Britpart one on my 90 - covered 4k miles on a mild tune before I sold the car.

No issues with either.

Here's how the britpart cracked on mine :

Same on the sereck I took off did that on both ends had about a 4mm gap on infeed side could feel the boost pressure at front of car
It had been a bit lazy up to 2000 rpm which with vnt it normally isn't tried a new maf no change so smoke tested system and intercooler was leaking where end plate joins tubes
So alisport ordered wasn't worth cutting end caps off to reweld tube joins

triggersbroom said:

Had nothing but trouble with sereck it split 3 times before I gave up and bought an alisport one had no issues with it since
It split twice on the end cap welds gave up when it started leaking where cooling tubes join end cap

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Were you running a very high boost pressure?

sierrafery said:

Here's how the britpart cracked on mine :

View attachment 216581

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That looks to me like it was only fuse welded. That's where you just heat up and melt the two parts to be welded without using filler rod as it looks like the split is straight along the line of the joint.
If you knew someone with an AC tig set who can weld aluminium you could have easily repaired that and then put tacks every two or three inches along the other welds to strengthen them.

yfo866 said:

That looks to me like it was only fuse welded. That's where you just heat up and melt the two parts to be welded without using filler rod as it looks like the split is straight along the line of the joint.
If you knew someone with an AC tig set who can weld aluminium you could have easily repaired that and then put tacks every two or three inches along the other welds to strengthen them.

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Just looks like a bad weld with little penetration to me. It has the filler rod weld pattern to me, although same could be achieved without filler. Not up on fuse welding, but thought that was done by spinning metal together?

J

marjon said:

Just looks like a bad weld with little penetration to me. It has the filler rod weld pattern to me, although same could be achieved without filler. Not up on fuse welding, but thought that was done by spinning metal together?

J

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No. That's friction welding. You spin the two pieces or one half to get them bloody hot and then force them together.
As long as you have a close fit between the two parts you can just run the torch along the join and fuse them together. You still get the half moon lines in the weld as the pool solidifies behind as you go. Depending on the application it can be a quick and easy way to form a weld.
You'd only use this process for thin material. If you have a gap it goes Pete Tong VERY quickly as both halves of the weld just melt back away from each other...
When i worked at a company making steel shop fittings it was a process we used fairly often.
In my last job making flood barriers, all of which were aluminium, we'd often fuse the outside corner of the profile and then fully weld using filler the two other faces. The three sides would form a C section into which we would slide in a composite section. I'd weld up the profile to form the bottom and two upright sides and assembly would rivet into place the top piece and then fully seal around the joint of the profile and composite.
You have to think about the application though. I wouldn't weld this way if there was any pressure behind it or you needed good strength. It does give you a very neat looking weld though!

yfo866 said:

No. That's friction welding. You spin the two pieces or one half to get them bloody hot and then force them together.
As long as you have a close fit between the two parts you can just run the torch along the join and fuse them together. You still get the half moon lines in the weld as the pool solidifies behind as you go. Depending on the application it can be a quick and easy way to form a weld.
You'd only use this process for thin material. If you have a gap it goes Pete Tong VERY quickly as both halves of the weld just melt back away from each other...
When i worked at a company making steel shop fittings it was a process we used fairly often.
In my last job making flood barriers, all of which were aluminium, we'd often fuse the outside corner of the profile and then fully weld using filler the two other faces. The three sides would form a C section into which we would slide in a composite section. I'd weld up the profile to form the bottom and two upright sides and assembly would rivet into place the top piece and then fully seal around the joint of the profile and composite.
You have to think about the application though. I wouldn't weld this way if there was any pressure behind it or you needed good strength. It does give you a very neat looking weld though!

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Ok thanks.
So welding without filler is fuse welding,

Dad used to make me weld washers together using no filler as practice in the good old days of gas. I could weld aluminum with gas in the end.

Must get the proper gas for my TIG to start practicing again in the winter


J

I run a turbo technics vnt poss slightly more pressure but nothing ridiculous
Nothing that the alisport has had any issues with

marjon said:

Ok thanks.
So welding without filler is fuse welding,

Dad used to make me weld washers together using no filler as practice in the good old days of gas. I could weld aluminum with gas in the end.

Must get the proper gas for my TIG to start practicing again in the winter


J

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Yes, you just melt and 'fuse' the two parts of the joint together.

If you can weld aluminium using oxy-acetelyne then you're better than me then. Before i went to college i tried gas welding two 1/4 inch pieces of aluminium held in the vice at work. I knew you needed flux and i'd got two sorts. One for brazing copper, which was 90% of my main job at that time and some flux for silver soldering which is what i used for soldering steel pipes to copper. Neither did a damn thing to break through the aluminium oxide so i ended up with two pieces of molten aluminium being pushed together and dented by my thin strip of same material i was using as a filler rod. It was like trying to stick two bowls of custard together when both had thick skins on.
On a hard drive somewhere i've got a video by an American called Rob Covell. He's a fabricator who seems to be able to make anything, and annoyingly making it look like ANYONE could do it. One of the projects is him making a custom motorbike fuel tank out of aluminum('kin Yanks...) from scratch. He sketches out the rough shape and cuts four pieces out of flat and using a sandbag and hammer and an English Wheel he forms the pieces, tacks them together and then gas welds them together. He explains that he gas welded it because the weld is softer and easier to hammer flat.
It was very hard to resist the urge to go out and make one of my own!
He has some video clips on youtube.

If you want to TIG aluminium you'll need an AC/DC tig welder. A DC set won't do it as you need the current going in the opposite direction to break through the aluminium oxide. When you gas weld the flux does this for you. It has the added benefit of melting just before the metal does so when you see the flux melt start welding. With TIG, it just goes shiny and remains so for a couple of seconds and then it falls onto the foor. Or your boots... As I'm sure you know it doesn't change colour

yfo866 said:

If you want to TIG aluminium you'll need an AC/DC tig welder.

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I have, problem is finding gas, think I have found somewhere so will pop in next time I am near and try and get it sorted in a foreign language and see what I end up with
I haven’t picked up a gas torch in years now so I would probably end up with a mess on the floor too

But it’s fun and some do make it look so annoyingly easy.

J

marjon said:

I have, problem is finding gas, think I have found somewhere so will pop in next time I am near and try and get it sorted in a foreign language and see what I end up with
I haven’t picked up a gas torch in years now so I would probably end up with a mess on the floor too

But it’s fun and some do make it look so annoyingly easy.

J

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A lot of motor factors seem to be selling gas in cylinders that don't require rental. A couple of years ago i finally got around to returning my cylinder for my MIG back to BOC. I hadn't used it for at least five years and had been coughing up nearly hundered quid a year for being able to stare at it. When i next feel the need i'll nip down to Bromsgrove Motor Factors and get one of theirs. You pay a deposit on the cylinder and then just pay for the gas when you take it back for a full one. I hear that they like to see it once every five years for safety checks or something. Probably more likely to make sure you've still got it...
Not sure if BMF have a branch in Bulgaria...
Do you have any local car clubs you could ask where they get their gas from?
The secret to welding alumimium safely is not to stand with your feet directly under what you are welding
From what i remember watching Ron's videos, was if gas welding, once you start just keep going!
With TIG, you just back off the pedal if things get a bit too hot. although it doesn't change colour, with experience you do get an inkling when you need to ease off.

yfo866 said:

A lot of motor factors seem to be selling gas in cylinders that don't require rental. A couple of years ago i finally got around to returning my cylinder for my MIG back to BOC. I hadn't used it for at least five years and had been coughing up nearly hundered quid a year for being able to stare at it. When i next feel the need i'll nip down to Bromsgrove Motor Factors and get one of theirs. You pay a deposit on the cylinder and then just pay for the gas when you take it back for a full one. I hear that they like to see it once every five years for safety checks or something. Probably more likely to make sure you've still got it...
Not sure if BMF have a branch in Bulgaria...
Do you have any local car clubs you could ask where they get their gas from?
The secret to welding alumimium safely is not to stand with your feet directly under what you are welding
From what i remember watching Ron's videos, was if gas welding, once you start just keep going!
With TIG, you just back off the pedal if things get a bit too hot. although it doesn't change colour, with experience you do get an inkling when you need to ease off.

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Nope I don’t expect a branch of BMF here either

They will probably do “buy the bottle” here and then just pay for refills. That’s how we do the house LPG bottles.
Thing is it’s not high on the list of things to be done at the moment, so just keeping eyes out right now. It’s like most things here, it’s all available but they (most) don’t advertise very well so most is word of mouth, I will find it. Hope before the winter comes then I can hide away in the garage, melting metal to the floor

Yep got to be quick.

J

marjon said:

Nope I don’t expect a branch of BMF here either

They will probably do “buy the bottle” here and then just pay for refills. That’s how we do the house LPG bottles.
Thing is it’s not high on the list of things to be done at the moment, so just keeping eyes out right now. It’s like most things here, it’s all available but they (most) don’t advertise very well so most is word of mouth, I will find it. Hope before the winter comes then I can hide away in the garage, melting metal to the floor

Yep got to be quick.

J

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I first found out about other companies selling gas without charging cylinder rental in the classifieds of motoring magazines, Do you have Bulgarian car nut mags?