[Eminenttismo]

210 KMS in your Amby proves it is still reliable after all these years. After all, you spent a lot of time restoring it. Nice!

[asdfvinay]

The alternator bracket seems to have a weld joint. See if you can get a bracket without these joints. I had a similar joint in my Premier Padmini and it did a good job for few years, but one evening when the car was started, the joint gave up and I was stranded. My trusted electrician said this is common if there is a weld joint and replaced it with a proper one. If these weld joints do a good job, its by luck rather than default.

Regarding the temperature with AC, does your car has a second fan? Using a second fan may be very useful. My Mark 2 with a diesel heart goes to boiling point when AC is used in summer days. Since there was not enough space to fix a second fan without disturbing the grill, we moved the condenser to the underbody(below drivers seat) and it helped

Originally Posted by h14

Something to watch closely

While driving in stop and go traffic the temp seems to rise up pretty quickly. Afternoon sun and stop and go traffic results in the temp guage pointing at 100, negating the error menas it would be 90-95 degrees. Have to fix or change the temp guage and check again before deciding on further course of action.

Another friend who has the similar set up in his Mark1 amby says that his car always runs in the 90-95 degree mark with AC.

Will post further updates during my next visit to CBE. Hope you all enjoyed the pics and tons of thanks are due to all fellow bhp'ians and friends for their support and well wishes and of course to the mechs, electricians, tinker's and painters who worked on the car.

[h14]

Originally Posted by asdfvinay

The alternator bracket seems to have a weld joint. See if you can get a bracket without these joints. I had a similar joint in my Premier Padmini and it did a good job for few years, but one evening when the car was started, the joint gave up and I was stranded. My trusted electrician said this is common if there is a weld joint and replaced it with a proper one. If these weld joints do a good job, its by luck rather than default.

Regarding the temperature with AC, does your car has a second fan? Using a second fan may be very useful. My Mark 2 with a diesel heart goes to boiling point when AC is used in summer days. Since there was not enough space to fix a second fan without disturbing the grill, we moved the condenser to the underbody(below drivers seat) and it helped

Thanks for the heads up Vinay! Will get the alternator bracket checked on my next visit.

Reg extra fan, we had it with the tata engine in use by cutting the grille, but now I have not installed the second fan as I wanted to have the original grille. The cut grille is with me and I can swap when things are really hot to handle and have kept it as last option. But your idea of moving the condenser has really given me hopes, can you provide more info on that mod of yours? Any pics of that will also be helpful!

[asdfvinay]

Originally Posted by h14

Thanks for the heads up Vinay! Will get the alternator bracket checked on my next visit.

Reg extra fan, we had it with the tata engine in use by cutting the grille, but now I have not installed the second fan as I wanted to have the original grille. The cut grille is with me and I can swap when things are really hot to handle and have kept it as last option. But your idea of moving the condenser has really given me hopes, can you provide more info on that mod of yours? Any pics of that will also be helpful!

My car runs on Isuzu G1 and the coolant used to be boiling by the time we return home after a hot days run with AC. There was no space between the grill and condenser to accommodate the fan, only option was to cut the grill as you had or fix a fan outside the grill. Since we did not want to spoil the original look, the mechanic suggested moving the condenser to the underbody as they did to few other cars. There is nothing much to this. I think two plates/brackets were welded under the body to hold the condenser(just like the ones that hold the radiator) and also the fan. The required ac pipes were routed to it.

We haven't got the AC work done after a repaint 3 years back, but I think the condenser(or atleast the brackets) is still on the car though disconnected. Car is at a different place, I'll see if I can get a pic of the condenser by next week.

Note, if there is enough gap between radiator and the visco fan, you can move the radiator and condenser towards the engine and fit a electirc fan in the space created. In our case we do not have any usable gap between the visco fan and the radiator. Same must be the case with your older engine resulting in the cut grill arrangement. Now that you have changed the engine, check if there is any gap. If there is gap, I'll suggest a electric fan even if there is no over heating of the engine.

[DHABHAR.BEHRAM]

Dear h14 and asdfvinay - the car looks nice from outside. You are operating the cooling system on the limit, without any factor of safety. The PCA (Permanent Corrective Action) is to introduce a degassing tank in the cooling circuit. Use the big thin rectangular one from one of the commercial vehicles. There is lots of space on the Amby firewall to mount it, I wonder why nobody has done it till now. Besides continuously degassing the system when the engine runs, thereby ensuring complete reliability, it also does something else which nobody has realized. It actually increases the coolant capacity without the need to put a bigger radiator. You have to ensure that the inlet / degass circuits are perfectly located, routed, plumbed and all joints are clipped perfectly. Orifices may be required in the degass circuits from the cylinder head / radiator, depending on the mass flow of the water pump and the initial "delta T" result. In your case, as you are doing only one car, we can take a call on this. For me to get a feel of the car's delta T, please post the data of the temperature readings that you got in the 220 kms run. What engine is that one, by the way?

Please do not confuse between degassing tank and surge tank (radiator overflow tank). If in doubt, please post your queries, I will guide you in totality.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

[h14]

Behram sir, thanks for your valuable advise.

The engine here is matador. When starting from Coimbatore on the onward trip early morning the temperature was constant at around 85 degrees and on the return trip under the afternoon hot sun the temp was around 95.

I used the word around since the meter has some error as mentioned at previous post.

In the return trip, the meter showed 100 degrees, but I can confirm there was no boiling and feel of heat in engine bay also ensured its less than 100. So I predict it to be 90 to 95.

Please do provide more info on your suggestion. I would definitely like to try the option.

[asdfvinay]

Originally Posted by DHABHAR.BEHRAM

Dear h14 and asdfvinay - the car looks nice from outside. You are operating the cooling system on the limit, without any factor of safety. The PCA (Permanent Corrective Action) is to introduce a degassing tank in the cooling circuit. Use the big thin rectangular one from one of the commercial vehicles. There is lots of space on the Amby firewall to mount it, I wonder why nobody has done it till now. Besides continuously degassing the system when the engine runs, thereby ensuring complete reliability, it also does something else which nobody has realized. It actually increases the coolant capacity without the need to put a bigger radiator. You have to ensure that the inlet / degass circuits are perfectly located, routed, plumbed and all joints are clipped perfectly. Orifices may be required in the degass circuits from the cylinder head / radiator, depending on the mass flow of the water pump and the initial "delta T" result. In your case, as you are doing only one car, we can take a call on this. For me to get a feel of the car's delta T, please post the data of the temperature readings that you got in the 220 kms run. What engine is that one, by the way?

Please do not confuse between degassing tank and surge tank (radiator overflow tank). If in doubt, please post your queries, I will guide you in totality.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

Hi,
Thankyou for that wonderful info. I did not have any idea of the degassing tank when we faced the issue with our amby and obviously it never clicked the mind. We will be getting the AC work done again in next few months and this time I shall put a degassing tank as suggested.

Some doubts. By introducing a degassing tank, does the condenser fan become redundant? Does higher capacity mean better cooling? There were degassing tanks in our Indica/Indigo and Zen Diesel, but there is no second fan on Zen while Indica uses a second fan. I think Ambassadors with factory fitted AC also come with a second fan. If degassing tank is a better solution, why do new cars still use a second fan?

Thankyou,
-Vinay.

[DHABHAR.BEHRAM]

Originally Posted by asdfvinay

Some doubts. By introducing a degassing tank, does the condenser fan become redundant? Does higher capacity mean better cooling? There were degassing tanks in our Indica/Indigo and Zen Diesel, but there is no second fan on Zen while Indica uses a second fan. I think Ambassadors with factory fitted AC also come with a second fan. If degassing tank is a better solution, why do new cars still use a second fan? Vinay

Dear Vinay - degassing tank introduction has no relation to any fan in the cooling circuit. Water or coolant is the primary cooling medium whereas air in turn cools the water so air is the secondary cooling medium. Degassing tank will increase the heat rejection to the primary medium whereas electric fan will increase the heat rejection to the secondary medium. Higher capacity is not necessarily better, optimum capacity must be provided in both mediums. Use of multiple fan depends on many factors including availability of packaging space and cost. All this is applicable to us in a design environment.

For you, as you are doing only one vehicle, it is very easy. Just overdo all the parameters a little bit because for one vehicle, cost really does not matter.

Dear h14 - the Matador engine is generally a well behaved fellow as far as the cooling system performance is concerned, if you are remaining in the 80/90 range, with degassing tank you will build on the factor of safety. Check that all other cooling system modules are perfect, water pump, fan belt etc. Please post underbonnet radiator mounting, fan position details etc so that I can comment further.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

[h14]

Thank you Behram sir for the detailed clarification. I will ask my dad to click pictures and send it across since my next visit to Coimbatore is only mid of next month. Will post the pics positively by this weekend.

Even now the matador never crosses 80 degrees without AC irrespective of time of the day. Only with AC the temp rises.

[h14]

Got the radiator changed few weeks back and the difference has been obvious. The temperature has not climbed up so much as before but difference is not much. Rather than settling at 95 its around 90 now. Will post further updates soon.

[car love]

Lovely Amby you have lovingly restored. Congrats!! Goes to show that Coimbatore continues to remain the spiritual home of Amby care and restoration..I wanted to know if Koya's (Upholstery people) have any branch outside Coimbatore like Bangalore or Chennai? Thanks

[h14]

Finally my Amby get the wipers! Been searching for long and finally came to know that Koyas has them now. Grabbed them with both hands.

They are of make camoflex. Quality is nothing to write home about. Cost was Rs. 600 for a set of 2 arms and 2 blades. Importantly these are chrome ones

[h14]

Update time

Amby has been doing good. Been put to some regular drives in the city and he's never stumbled. There's been minor niggles here and that's nothing to worry about.

On the other side the bumpers have some rusting here and there. So that needs some attention.

Last week some attention was paid to the engine bay

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by h14

Update time

Amby has been doing good. Been put to some regular drives in the city and he's never stumbled. There's been minor niggles here and that's nothing to worry about.

On the other side the bumpers have some rusting here and there. So that needs some attention.

Lovely restoration h14!

I am speechless and I am remembering my days when I as a child used to travel in the Ambassador. Wish I could get one as of today in good nick! Just love the car.

Anurag.

[h14]

The Amby was doing well and things were pretty much settled, the brakes were my only worry along with the ever increasing rust on the front and rear bumpers.

Finally decided it was time to set these two issues right and then the search began where to get these two things rectified.

After few calls here and there, got onto an enthusiastic team and handed over my Amby to them.

Additionally, wanted to see if we could add an extra fan without cutting the grille and then the wishlist started growing and growing.

Now loads of items are planned and the Amby is now into phase 2.

Don't want to reveal all the plans now itself and shall let them unwind as and when things fall into place.

Couple of pics for now with the Fittings removed for the chrome works.