Little known facts about radiator manufacture

[Snake2998]

I was doing some consulting work in a small rural town (village) in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa and staying in a B&B. The owner found out about my Cobra and said he made the radiators for the Cobra manufacturers in Port Elizabeth and invited me to tour his “Radiator Works”. I agreed and boy was it a revelation.

It turns out he makes radiator assembly lines for many of the automotive manufacturers world-wide. He then took me through the process. Radiator manufacture requires absolute accuracy with precision fit to enable oven braising. Everything has to be an exact touching fit. The slots in the header and footer plates for the tubes are spark eroded, the fins are embossed and folded from Aluminium foil using meshed “cogs” that only one manufacturer in England is able to produce because of accuracy requirements. Tubes are manufactured to similar accuracy. Accuracy for all core components is better ½ a thou.