Ranger Mods

From my initial calculations on the physical size of the radiator and the engine capacity it would seem that the standard cooling system is at best marginal and will certainly be at its limit in some Australian summer conditions. I would hastily add that I have not measured the actual capacity of the radiator and/or the engine block but one of the negatives about the radiator would have to be the plastic headers, cheap, economical to manufacture but plastic is hardly the best conductor of heat.
Has anyone installed an aftermarket radiator with increased capacity ? I've sent off a couple of emails to "Desert Cooler" but they haven't shown any interest to this date and I'm not really interested in using a waterless coolant so a larger capacity system would seem to be the logical option.

I would test it first. It works better than you would think and driving in 46 degree temps, towing at 130kph I didn't see anything extreme on the temperatures and all while using less than 12 lph.

I fitted a tridon TT2322-180 thermostat with good results

Race Radiators in Melbourne make excellent radiators, the performance burn out boys use them to stop over heating, don't go near desert boolers as from personal experiences

hoges wrote:Race Radiators in Melbourne make excellent radiators, the performance burn out boys use them to stop over heating, don't go near desert boolers as from personal experiences

i agree with this. avoid aussie desert coolers and go with the boys at race radiators. i have had several jobs custom made and modified by them. they will make anything and everything you need. making a ranger radiator will be a very very simple job for them

Problem solved, and thank you for your comments and advice, in the end I got a 40mm deep unit from Penrith Radiators, alloy top and bottom headers and beautifully made with roughly 30% more coolant capacity over the OEM unit with its plastic headers. On my recent "shake down" trip into the Simpson Desert to explore the K1 Line and Warburton Track the ambient temperatures reached an unpleasant 45 degrees C on most of the four days we were in the desert but the coolant never looked like going above 90 degrees C, not at all bad considering most of the driving was done over very deep soft hot sand dunes in high range 4WD with the rear diff locked and seldom in any gear higher than 4th with an engine that had only done 5000 k's so it was (and still is) tight and not even close to being fully run in.

Interesting, what was the cost?

NTMID8 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 27, 2018 1:35 am Interesting, what was the cost?

Sorry for my tardy reply, $1200 plus fitting

So months on still happy with the upgrade?

NTMID8 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 02, 2018 5:46 pm So months on still happy with the upgrade?

Sorry for the late reply, my mind - or what's left of it - has been on other things.
Firstly the cost, $1200 supplied and I had to fit it.
No mods were required other than cutting 30mm off the top and bottom hoses to accomodate the deeper radiator
Yes, well satisfied, I took my son-in-law over the Simpson just after it re-opened in March and despite over 40 degree temperatures the engine coolant never went over 89 degrees. The Wildtrak has now done 32,000 k's with it fitted with no adverse affects.

I've noticed that the engine takes a little longer to reach normal operating temperatures of 87-89 degrees C - possibly due to the increased capacity. It also cools down a lot faster once the engine is turned off. From 89C down to 50C in under 30 minutes.