ZD30 intercooler repair project.

As a few of you know I have a passing interest in intercoolers and as a specialist Tig welder I've had to build a few over the years mainly for the doof doof boys.
For quite some time I've been interested in the reports of ZD30 intercoolers leaking and I thought I would investigate why.
Luckily one of the posters here in Melbourne had one on his Patrol which he had tried to have repaired by both welding and glueing. Neither method worked and to be fair the way the welding was performed would have been the exact same method I would have used namely welding the offending tube/s at both ends after removing the endtanks.
Well I have cut off the endtanks and to be perfectly honest the intercooler itself appears to be made very lightly in construction especially the tubes coming through the header plates. The tubes are also made of a rolled construction which is joined along one seam by brazing these are then brazed to the header plate.
In comparison to a quality aftermarket core the construction is poor indeed and perhaps with the variation of boost pressure ranging from 15-30 psi in some cases they simply fail from the constant expansion and contraction.
The aftermarket cores by K&J, PWR and Adrad are all made of tubes that are of one piece extrusions (much stronger) which are then furnace brazed to the header plates.
I've seen many examples with the telltale weeping of oil in the corner of OEM I/coolers so it isn't an isolated occurence indeed the poster who's intercooler it is bought another from Nissan which has started leaking as well. Another person who contacted me about his leaking I/cooler when Nissan fobbed him off and told him it would cost him $950 for a new one went back to Nissan and said he had someone interested in cutting apart his intercooler to see what the possible problems could be. Well, in short Nissans price for a new I/cooler suddenly dropped from $950 to $0 and Nissan got to keep the I/cooler, probably a coincidence ;-) I suppose.
I am going to get a custom core built for this one and weld the original endtanks on and have made a jig (very basic) so I can ensure it all bolts back in place.
Below are a few pics of the removed core complete with welded tubes (not by me) and attempts to glue and of a sample aftermarket core (not full size, a sample only) in this instance made by Adrad in Adelaide to give an idea of how the cores are constructed.
Regards Andrew.