Following on from several recent discussions with both trade and retail customers who have approached us regarding the supply of radiators for the T3 either as a standard replacement or an uprated version we’ve been prompted to write this post regarding what’s happened with the radiators over the last few years and what’s available now and to dispel some of the myths floating around.
This is all a matter of what’s actually available and modern manufacturing techniques. Time and technology has moved on.
As far as we are concerned, and ignoring the very early Diesel radiator which isn’t available anyway… and the “DF” radiator which isn’t either, there are 2 different radiators
- A thinner radiator for 1.9l WBX engines (34mm core).
- A thicker core for Diesel models and 2.1l WBX engines (42mm core).
This measurement refers to the thickness of the radiator core. The core being the “finned” section of the radiator that has channels that the coolant runs through.
Actually it’s more complicated than that, as there are a number of dropped part numbers (including one that was discontinued before the water-cooled models were even made… but we’ll ignore all those too as they all supersede to the same parts.)
Previously, we have offered 2 options for the larger 42mm core radiator, an original South African produced radiator from Hella (still made until a couple of years ago), which was pretty much exactly the same as the one VW fitted in the factory and an alternative which is an aftermarket radiator sold under many different brands. Sadly the originals are no longer available, part of the reason for this is the insistence by some suppliers that the cheaper rads are the same as the originals resulting in a drop in demand for them.
Please review the following table that lists all the different radiator part numbers as fitted to a T3, when they were discontinued and which part number they were replaced by.
| VW No | Style | To fit | Core | Construction | Discontinued by VW | Superseded to | Notes |
| 025 121 253 | Late | 1.9l DF and EY | 34mm | Plastic tanks | 01/06/12 | NLA | Just use 025 121 253 A Instead |
| 025 121 253 A | Late | 1.9l DG | 34mm | Plastic tanks | 01/02/12 | NLA | Upgrade for DF & EY |
| 068 121 253 | Early | 1.6D CS | 35mm | Metal tanks | 30/09/80 | 068 121 253 A | Dropped before introduction! |
| 068 121 253 A | Early | 1.6D CS | 35mm | Metal tanks | 01/12/02 | NLA | Repair or Convert to late style. |
| 068 121 253 B | Early | 1.6D CS | 35mm | Metal tanks | 31/01/83 | 068 121 253 A | |
| 068 121 253 C | Late | All except DF, DG, EY & SP | 42mm | Plastic tanks | 15/05/87 | 068 121 253 E | |
| 068 121 253 D | Late | All except DF, DG, EY & SP | 42mm | Plastic tanks | 30/09/94 | 068 121 253 E | |
| 068 121 253 E | Late | All except DF, DG, EY & SP | 42mm | Plastic tanks | 01/10/09 | NLA | Upgrade for DG/SP in Hot Climates |
The parts in bold are radiators that we currently stock.
The early or late style in the table above refers to the radiator style and not the vehicle, early style radiators were only ever fitted to 1.6D “CS” engines and were of a more traditional construction having brass tanks and a soldered core. The early radiator is easily identified by it’s huge design flaw by having the cooling fan switches at the top of the left hand tank, any loss of coolant would render the fan switches inoperable and would accelerate a overheat situation.
Luckily, VW realised their shortcomings in this early style radiator design and it was replaced with the introduction of the WBX engine for the 1983 model year by the later style radiator with plastic tanks, aluminium core and a fan switch in a sensible place!
There are rumours of a mythical 50mm core radiator and yes, they did exist but as we said at the outset, time and technology has moved on and the same cooling capacity can be achieved by thinner and more modern cores.
The 50mm core featured tightly packed fins that would often get clogged with dirt, debris and insect matter much reducing the cooling capacity.
Hopefully this page clears up some of the misinformation floating around and helps you make an informed choice when shopping around for a radiator.