It was finally time to unwrap the presents from mckinney. I use the word presents loosely as it cost me 75o$ for the radiator, fan, and shroud. I'll cover the other parts ordered in another entry, but trust me when I say, it's as good as the discoveries in this one.
First impressions of the radiator/fan/shroud setup were high. Stack height wasn't too thick, the shroud fit the radiator and the fan fit the shroud which is always a plus, and the welds looked good. Upon a second look however, I noticed that the mounting brackets for the radiator were not symmetric, and even more, one looked bent from shipping, not bent because it was designed that way for installation purposes.
Comparing it to the good side it is clear how bad it was. This was surprising as the packing job looked really good. Maybe it was damaged before shipping? No, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it happened in transit.
More shots of the bent bracket.
On to things less depressing, the core itself looks great minus a few bent fins but nothing to write home about.
The bracket material is relatively thin (not in a bad way) so it was easy to bend back into shape, flat as it were. after a little time with a vice grip and a hammer, she's good as new minus a few jar marks, superficial scratches, and pounding shadows.
Ok so maybe there were more than a few marks left over from the re-alignment of the bent mounting bracket, but it had to be done. It actually looks worse in the pictures than it actually is if that's at all possible.
I was frustrated enough with previous interactions with mckinney that I was NOT returning it to them. I'm sure UPS would have been blamed anyways and I would have had to try to convince their legal department of the issues at hand. No thanks. On top of the wonderful customer service, venting online about the lack of quality seems to be a satisfying enough recourse at this stage in the game anyways.
At least the bracket is flat now.
More GEL locktite for the win.
Since hardware (bolts) did not come with my 75o$ radiator kit, I hunted and searched for the correct diameter bolts and matching nuts and washers in order to proceed with the installation. After finding 4 of each, yes - 4, I quickly realized that only 3 of the mounting tab holes lined up with apparent mounting holes in the core support. You'd think that spending that much on a kit that is designed to fit would not require modification to be used as intended, but I guess that's too much to ask.
There are several other holes in the area that could have been used instead of having to drill another hole. Maybe the choice was made for the brackets to be symmetric on either side of the radiator, maybe they were cheaper to buy, maybe it was worth the drilling in order to reduce risk during assembly of getting the wrong bracket on one side if they were flipped accidentally. Again, for the price paid I don't think I'm asking too much, but then again I seem to be more picky than most vendors I've ordered parts from.
I've calmed down a bit about the lack of 4th hole as the radiator does look really good and fits great otherwise. I didn't even drill out the 4th hole as the other 3 held it firmly in place. The other 3 mounting holes all fell in different locations of the T shaped hole in the brackets which I thought was odd as well, however. Again, I would have thought more thought would have been put into it being designed to work exactly for this application, since it was sold as such.
Like the rear suspension, I had to start all 3 of them and then tighten them down in order to get it to fit snugly in place, but they did fit. Putting one in and tightening it down all the way simply led to another not lining up. Maybe the T shaped holes in the brackets are there for other model s3o's. It does impress me how solidly mounted parts can line up as well as they do on a 4o year old car even with the slotted mounting brackets, kudos for that.
There may even be enough room for a cold air intake later on (hint hint).
The input/output ports are angled perfectly for the rb25 engine and more importantly, both on the passenger side of the car. No more having to deal with a really ugly corrugated radiator hose, or even worse daisy chained bends and hard lines snaking its way across the top front of the engine bay to adapt a radiator for an application no longer in use. Talk about an engine looking like it belongs there with the correct finishing touches.
First impressions of the radiator/fan/shroud setup were high. Stack height wasn't too thick, the shroud fit the radiator and the fan fit the shroud which is always a plus, and the welds looked good. Upon a second look however, I noticed that the mounting brackets for the radiator were not symmetric, and even more, one looked bent from shipping, not bent because it was designed that way for installation purposes.
Comparing it to the good side it is clear how bad it was. This was surprising as the packing job looked really good. Maybe it was damaged before shipping? No, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it happened in transit.
More shots of the bent bracket.
On to things less depressing, the core itself looks great minus a few bent fins but nothing to write home about.
The bracket material is relatively thin (not in a bad way) so it was easy to bend back into shape, flat as it were. after a little time with a vice grip and a hammer, she's good as new minus a few jar marks, superficial scratches, and pounding shadows.
Ok so maybe there were more than a few marks left over from the re-alignment of the bent mounting bracket, but it had to be done. It actually looks worse in the pictures than it actually is if that's at all possible.
I was frustrated enough with previous interactions with mckinney that I was NOT returning it to them. I'm sure UPS would have been blamed anyways and I would have had to try to convince their legal department of the issues at hand. No thanks. On top of the wonderful customer service, venting online about the lack of quality seems to be a satisfying enough recourse at this stage in the game anyways.
At least the bracket is flat now.
More GEL locktite for the win.
Since hardware (bolts) did not come with my 75o$ radiator kit, I hunted and searched for the correct diameter bolts and matching nuts and washers in order to proceed with the installation. After finding 4 of each, yes - 4, I quickly realized that only 3 of the mounting tab holes lined up with apparent mounting holes in the core support. You'd think that spending that much on a kit that is designed to fit would not require modification to be used as intended, but I guess that's too much to ask.
There are several other holes in the area that could have been used instead of having to drill another hole. Maybe the choice was made for the brackets to be symmetric on either side of the radiator, maybe they were cheaper to buy, maybe it was worth the drilling in order to reduce risk during assembly of getting the wrong bracket on one side if they were flipped accidentally. Again, for the price paid I don't think I'm asking too much, but then again I seem to be more picky than most vendors I've ordered parts from.
I've calmed down a bit about the lack of 4th hole as the radiator does look really good and fits great otherwise. I didn't even drill out the 4th hole as the other 3 held it firmly in place. The other 3 mounting holes all fell in different locations of the T shaped hole in the brackets which I thought was odd as well, however. Again, I would have thought more thought would have been put into it being designed to work exactly for this application, since it was sold as such.
Like the rear suspension, I had to start all 3 of them and then tighten them down in order to get it to fit snugly in place, but they did fit. Putting one in and tightening it down all the way simply led to another not lining up. Maybe the T shaped holes in the brackets are there for other model s3o's. It does impress me how solidly mounted parts can line up as well as they do on a 4o year old car even with the slotted mounting brackets, kudos for that.
There may even be enough room for a cold air intake later on (hint hint).
The input/output ports are angled perfectly for the rb25 engine and more importantly, both on the passenger side of the car. No more having to deal with a really ugly corrugated radiator hose, or even worse daisy chained bends and hard lines snaking its way across the top front of the engine bay to adapt a radiator for an application no longer in use. Talk about an engine looking like it belongs there with the correct finishing touches.
No comments:
Post a Comment