Several weeks ago I found a couple of deals I couldn't pass up.
An Afco aluminum radiator for $200.00 and pair of rear Bogart Welded R/T's used only once for $700.00 shipped.
I figured that since the weather was crappy last weekend I'd spend a couple of hours and install the new radiator since there was no antifreeze in the car due to the blower having been off the car for porting.
The instructions are clear and I get to work following them for the disassembly even though I've pulled the car apart enough times to do it in my sleep.
I pull off the top and bottom panels and unbolt the coolant and power steering reservoirs from the fan shroud and unplug and remove the shroud.
So far so good so I then unbolt the top bolts holding the rad to the A/C condenser. I am then instructed to remove the nuts holding the bottom of the rad to the condenser and this is where all the problems start.
I have a heat exchanger in front of my rad and condenser which makes taking the nuts off impossible while the HE is in place. I then need to jack up the car to remove the inner fender liners to remove the front bumper cover to remove the Gords HE and disconnect the electrical connectors to the SPAL twin fans which are attached to the HE to get to the nuts.
While doing all this I also notice a broken swaybar endlink which I wasn't expecting to find WTF?
So after going through this whole song and dance I remove the 2 nuts and studs holding the rad to the condenser. I then still need to fight with the 2 radiator hoses which still are using the factory spring style clips. Once that is done I'm pretty much home free and I pull the old radiator out and transfer the clips form the old rad to the new one and drop it in the car.
I screw in the bottom studs and nuts attaching the condenser to the new radiator and reconnect the 2 radiator hoses.
I then notice that the radiator is sitting at a funny angle with the top canted towards the engine. I look and I see that the Steeda rad support is touching against the side tanks which are thicker than the stock radiator. That fix is easy enough as I pull out the rotary cutoff wheel and take 1/4" off of each side of the rad support tabs solving that problem.
I then try to push the rad towards the rad support and find that the condenser is now in the way of the rad support by 1/8". I then remove the 2 nuts and studs attaching the condenser to the radiator and once again pull the 2 radiator hoses off so that I can lift the radiator enough to remove the rubber isolator pads and cut them down by 1/4" so that the condenser will clear the rad support. Reinstall the radiator, hoses, nuts and studs and finally get the rad in its proper place. I go to bolt the top of the radiator to the condenser with the bolts provided but they are too short. Iknew that if I installed the original bolts which were longer I would punch a hole in the radiator so I ground down the original bolts to the proper length I needed.
I put the fan assembly back in its place and I go to fasten it to the radiator with the bolts provided. Once again the bolts were too long and the originals needed to be modified to work. Once this was all done I then needed to shoehorn the Gords HE with SPAL twin fans attached back in, reinstall the front bumper cover, inner fender liners and fill both the radiator and intercooler circuits to complete the job.
I purchased a set of Bogarts a few weeks ago from someone in NJ. They were supposed to be brand new with only a few runs on them. I had them shipped to my cross border freight forwarding address and picked them up from there a couple of weeks ago.
When I picked them up I noticed that they were in flimsy boxes with no packing material inside.
I examine them quickly and find 1 ding in each outer lip.
Since this doesn't appear to be something that I would consider being the responsibility of UPS due to the poor packaging I bring them home and photograph them and send the photos to the seller without really taking them out of the boxes. I also told the seller that there are a couple of wheel repair places here in town which may be able to repair them without needing to send them back to Bogart and going through the whole cross border thing.
The seller replies that he gave them to the UPS store to package and ship and that if I could look into what it would cost to repair them.
I then went around to 3 repair shops and out of them 2 didn't want to even touch them. The 3rd shop lloked at them and placed them on a runout machine to see if there were any other defects. That's when the biggest problem was found.
The inside of one wheel was way out of true as can be seen in this photo.
I contacted the seller again with the pics and estimate and I was told to go ahead and repair them and send him the bill.
I received them back this Thursday and they're now perfect.
Since the Bogarts won't fit without relocating the swaybar I purchased the BMR Swaybar relocation brackets.
Upon installing them I couldn't get the Steeda rear swaybar to clear the BMR LCA relocation brackets by a long shot so I removed them and went to install my Steeda LCA relocation brackets which also wouldn't clear the swaybar.
I had to notch the Steeda LCA relocation brackets to allow the Steeda swaybar to clear.
I then installed the Bogarts after cutting off the swaybar mount tab but I was getting a slight interferance with the rear brake caliper. This is the first time that I've heard of an issue fitting S197 specific Bogarts .
I lightly sanded down a small area of the rear calipers so that there was no longer any interference.
I have not yet test driven the car due to rain.
An Afco aluminum radiator for $200.00 and pair of rear Bogart Welded R/T's used only once for $700.00 shipped.
I figured that since the weather was crappy last weekend I'd spend a couple of hours and install the new radiator since there was no antifreeze in the car due to the blower having been off the car for porting.
The instructions are clear and I get to work following them for the disassembly even though I've pulled the car apart enough times to do it in my sleep.
I pull off the top and bottom panels and unbolt the coolant and power steering reservoirs from the fan shroud and unplug and remove the shroud.
So far so good so I then unbolt the top bolts holding the rad to the A/C condenser. I am then instructed to remove the nuts holding the bottom of the rad to the condenser and this is where all the problems start.
I have a heat exchanger in front of my rad and condenser which makes taking the nuts off impossible while the HE is in place. I then need to jack up the car to remove the inner fender liners to remove the front bumper cover to remove the Gords HE and disconnect the electrical connectors to the SPAL twin fans which are attached to the HE to get to the nuts.
While doing all this I also notice a broken swaybar endlink which I wasn't expecting to find WTF?
So after going through this whole song and dance I remove the 2 nuts and studs holding the rad to the condenser. I then still need to fight with the 2 radiator hoses which still are using the factory spring style clips. Once that is done I'm pretty much home free and I pull the old radiator out and transfer the clips form the old rad to the new one and drop it in the car.
I screw in the bottom studs and nuts attaching the condenser to the new radiator and reconnect the 2 radiator hoses.
I then notice that the radiator is sitting at a funny angle with the top canted towards the engine. I look and I see that the Steeda rad support is touching against the side tanks which are thicker than the stock radiator. That fix is easy enough as I pull out the rotary cutoff wheel and take 1/4" off of each side of the rad support tabs solving that problem.
I then try to push the rad towards the rad support and find that the condenser is now in the way of the rad support by 1/8". I then remove the 2 nuts and studs attaching the condenser to the radiator and once again pull the 2 radiator hoses off so that I can lift the radiator enough to remove the rubber isolator pads and cut them down by 1/4" so that the condenser will clear the rad support. Reinstall the radiator, hoses, nuts and studs and finally get the rad in its proper place. I go to bolt the top of the radiator to the condenser with the bolts provided but they are too short. Iknew that if I installed the original bolts which were longer I would punch a hole in the radiator so I ground down the original bolts to the proper length I needed.
I put the fan assembly back in its place and I go to fasten it to the radiator with the bolts provided. Once again the bolts were too long and the originals needed to be modified to work. Once this was all done I then needed to shoehorn the Gords HE with SPAL twin fans attached back in, reinstall the front bumper cover, inner fender liners and fill both the radiator and intercooler circuits to complete the job.
I purchased a set of Bogarts a few weeks ago from someone in NJ. They were supposed to be brand new with only a few runs on them. I had them shipped to my cross border freight forwarding address and picked them up from there a couple of weeks ago.
When I picked them up I noticed that they were in flimsy boxes with no packing material inside.
I examine them quickly and find 1 ding in each outer lip.
Since this doesn't appear to be something that I would consider being the responsibility of UPS due to the poor packaging I bring them home and photograph them and send the photos to the seller without really taking them out of the boxes. I also told the seller that there are a couple of wheel repair places here in town which may be able to repair them without needing to send them back to Bogart and going through the whole cross border thing.
The seller replies that he gave them to the UPS store to package and ship and that if I could look into what it would cost to repair them.
I then went around to 3 repair shops and out of them 2 didn't want to even touch them. The 3rd shop lloked at them and placed them on a runout machine to see if there were any other defects. That's when the biggest problem was found.
The inside of one wheel was way out of true as can be seen in this photo.
I contacted the seller again with the pics and estimate and I was told to go ahead and repair them and send him the bill.
I received them back this Thursday and they're now perfect.
Since the Bogarts won't fit without relocating the swaybar I purchased the BMR Swaybar relocation brackets.
Upon installing them I couldn't get the Steeda rear swaybar to clear the BMR LCA relocation brackets by a long shot so I removed them and went to install my Steeda LCA relocation brackets which also wouldn't clear the swaybar.
I had to notch the Steeda LCA relocation brackets to allow the Steeda swaybar to clear.
I then installed the Bogarts after cutting off the swaybar mount tab but I was getting a slight interferance with the rear brake caliper. This is the first time that I've heard of an issue fitting S197 specific Bogarts .
I lightly sanded down a small area of the rear calipers so that there was no longer any interference.
I have not yet test driven the car due to rain.
