Radiator Conversion Thoughts

The great part about being fluent in the world of CAD/solid modelling is that you can quickly model all of the parts, align them how you see fit, then create all the brackets from sheet metal without struggling with keeping the parts in position. AND you can just print out the drawings of the flattened sheet metal parts to scale, cut them out to check fit, then trace them as a template. 

My latest train of though is to mount the oil cooler on the left side and the fan in the middle of the remaining parts. The only downside is the this will put stress through the cooler which I know can't handle much. As a solution I plan to put spacers in the end sections of the cooler mounts and run long bolts right through the cooler and it's mounts.  

NO the fan is not actually blue.

Here is a view of the flattened mounts, I am just waiting for the fan to arrive so I can have the exact bolt locations for those two brackets. The cooler bracket(far left) is completely done. I plan to make everything out of 12 gauge aluminum. 

Here are the folded components all on their own.

Next steps are to work on the from mounts and how I am going to attach the rad to the frame. My current plan of attack is to use the 4 holes on the front, attaching them to the sides of the shroud. I will have to use my last model of the frame and hood to work out the final shape. On a plus side it will be much easier to measure the hoods location relative to the frame with the engine out.

UPDATE
I don't feel like creating another post for this but the side support and angle are finalized. You can see the spacers on the ends of the oil cooler. I also added the hoses to the cooler as well. and mounted on the spitfire frame. How did people survive pre-solid modelling?

I also made the bracket which connects the oil cooler to the header tank out of some 22gauge aluminum just to check the fit. This method of creating sheet metal parts is superb. Perfect fit first time.