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Surge Tank Fill Line
Food for thought.
If your surge tank has the 5/8 or 3/4 "fill line" entering into the top of the low pressure side rad tank, its still not as good as it being connected to the bottom of the low pres. side tank or "Tee'd" into the suction (low pressure) hose leading to the water pump. Why ? As you fill the system via the chrome surge tank where pressure cap is, in your configuration, the coolant will enter into the top of the low side tank and as it fills the rad core tubes will trap some air making it more timing consuming to burp the system after a few heat cycles. Not impossible, just more troublesome. If the "fill line" is connected to the bottom of the low pres side tank or lower rad hose, during filling, the liquid will travel into engine block (via lower rad hose) and into rad and then force the air up and out from the bottom of rad core upward (via the small air bleed line at top of low side tank on my set-up). likewise as coolant travels into the engine block from the bottom, it forces the air up and out of the therm housing bleed valve. Ahh the fun of custom cooling systems ! |
Bill,
That makes complete sense. I will look into that. Do you know of anyone who sells the bottom hose "T" fittings that aren't plastic?? Thanks. |
One thing forgot to mention is sealing around radiator so with hood closed all air has to go through radiator not around it.Very important! also fan shrouding is second most important issue.Again, assuming you have the cooling capacity the motor requires.
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1 Attachment(s)
Eldon James is one company that supplies automotive grade glass filled nylon fittings but dont seem to make them in 1.75" sizes. I dont know of a supplier but there must be some out there for metal "T"s as well. I purchased my lower GF Nylon lower rad hose "T" from Advance Auto by looking at their inventory of lower hoses on the wall, but I dont remember the application. It has a 1" nipple for the FILL LINE from my chrome surge tank.
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No more overheating!!!
Well after many hours of thought and an equal number of hours of pulling things apart, I no longer have an overheating problem.
The source of my angst was a combination of a faulty temp sender (not the primary issue) and some significant air bubbles in the system. I made some minor plumbing corrections (thanks Bill) and put a GM coolant bleeder valve in the top of the thermostat housing. After 4 sessions of burping, bleeding and filling, no more air!! What a PITA! I ran my car hard this week when the outside temp was 104-106 and the car stayed at a comfortable 190-200 all the time. I tested several areas with the laser thermometer and everything was cool. Thanks to everyone with their great ideas. I really appreciate it Mike |
Mike,
YEEEEEEHAAAAAA! Tom |
Glad to hear you fixed it, I also fixed my annoying therm. housing leak today by finding an OEM FORD therm housing off of a 429 which is properly designed and wont warp like all the after market ones I have tried.
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kitcarbp,
Glad to hear it! Sounds like everyone is being successful at solving problems. Now for some cruising! Tom |
Bill,
Found a stock one..good..Yeah the aftermarket foreign cr@p causes lots of folks much angst..... Glad to hear you got it straightened out. When are you going to be on the road? Mike |
WCC pitfalls
The filler tank on this car is below the top of the water neck when the car is level. The elaborate hoses are supposed to push out the air, but the fill tank must be higher than the water neck. You need to jack up the front of the car in order to fill the radiator and remove the air.
I'm looking to get a Meziere water fill neck to fill at the engines highest point. I'll use a slightly higher pressure cap at the neck filler. I may redesign the resevoir system and incorporate an air bleed valve. I found that the radiator I recieved from WCC had a fan that was mounted backwards. it was a push type mounted as a pull. While it did pull running backwards, flow was only around the outside of the fan and roughly 1/3. I had to reverse the blades in order for it to work as the fan was designed. I just replaced the fan with an "S" blade design. This is much better. Xack |
Greetings from Arizona
Little late on this exchange of ideas....but wanted to share couple things... make sure you pressure test your radiator caps. We had 4 caps in our shop couple months ago, all new and all failed to hold pressure they were suppose too! and all made by well known manufactor. weak caps will also make your temps run Hot! I have a 66 Pontaic Lemans I bought last year. 468 Pontaic, turbo 400. when I bought it, it couldn't be driven 10 min at any speed with out hitting 220+. It came with flow retrictor, electric water pump, and electric fan and schroud, and alum radiator. I started with 195 thermostat, then stock stye pump, the fan with no fan clutch. and homemade fan schroud. Yesterday it was 110 at our house and we went to car show with it.....it ran 195 without fail and no leaks. All my hotrods run 195 thermostats. Jay |
pressure testing radiator caps
I have not tried that yet. What symptoms would you have if there was a leak in the radiator cap?
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Just to add to the knowledge base with our experience:
FE's are notorious for overheating and we fought it for a long time--but no more. Make sure the harmonic balancer pulley and the water pump pulley are at a 1:1 ratio. We make custom pulleys now just for that. Originally, the waterpump is underdriven and that doesn't work so well in traffic. Next, we put a big sucker fan on the back of the radiator and ditched the front fans. Finally, we made a billet radiator tank that can be pressurized to 20 psi. We make the billet radiator tank for small blocks, big blocks FE's, 351W's, 351C's, 460's, and the monster SOHC. No more problems. David :):):) |
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