Hot Rods 55 Chevy heating up-advice pls.

Curious whether you had the L79 intake to water pump crossover hose in operation in previous combo.
Haven't seen discussion about possible belt slippage, looks like conventional accessory/belt layout, should have plenty of wrap on the pulleys, possible glazed belt slipping?
Just me think'n out loud.

 

olsrounger, Remember the cooling rule of thumb. Hot at highway speed-not enough radiator. Hot at low speed-not enough fan. I'd ditch the pusher. You don't need any fan at high speed. I believe they impede air flow.

Gary

 

THX all-gonna keep playing with it--HRP--the fan is the exact one you always show--have two more new ones on the wall if anyone needs one.

 

Olscrounger, you mentioned little change in temp between upper and lower radiator hose. I'm guessing you have a temp gun ? Back in the day one would run their hand over the outside surface (grill side) of the radiator and feel for cold spot's. With that said there's no way with a pusher fan and condenser in the way. You really wanna try something out of the ordinary ? Take the hood off and see what happen's. Air Flow is more than likely the issue. But as stated before. Is your temp truly out of control because of mechanical issue's ? Or is it a lack of free flowing air to the radiator followed by no real release of "heat" from the engine bay other than trying to escape "downward" ?

 

I had a aluminum griffin radiator that would never keep my car cool,the big fan helped but the car still got warm ~ after I pulled the radiator out I cut the tanks off and found more than half the tubes were plugged with the material they stuck it together with.

I bought a bigger copper/br*** radiator and the car never ran hot again,before you get crazy another thing that can cause a car to run hot is the pulleys,I have seen some cars having problems because the water pump pulley & crank pulley are the same size.

Keeping the water pump pulley smaller than the crank pulley helps a ton.HRP

 

^^^^^ Hand over core

 

Automatic transmissions can add 20* to the temperature. My Ford runs hot in traffic, no shroud but I have one on the way. Adding a coolant recovery can to it as well. Like the others here say, 200* is not really hot at all.

 

THX for input--still suspect of the radiator. It has large tubes and less of them than most radiators and minimal temp drop from top to bottom is strange as well. We installed the same one in my neighbors 57 Nomad years ago with a ZZ4 and 700 and ac. Ran very hot and puked water(much hotter than this one). He gave it away and changed to one of those cross flow things with dual fans. I want to keep the traditional V8 setup/look. Will keep playing with it.
bobss396-Thanks for the temp info-may put cooler in trans lines as mentioned with small fan.

 

I don't see the problem. I'm with Jim. drive it. If it lets you sleep at night. put a big radiator in it. JMO

 

If it has a puke tank and doesn't overflow drive it. The only thing take will hurt you engine are dry spots in the water jacket.

 

Check the timing. There was a thread some time back and timing was the issue. Start with those basics first. And then for sure run a seperate trans cooler. Hopefully this helps

 

I do know that ****** coolers in radiators do add some heat. My wifes 50 Chevy uses a 200-4R and when cruising on the freeway I can see a 10-15 degree drop in temp when I switch on the lockup converter. The added heat would is probably even more poking around town out of lockup. I plan to add a separate ****** cooler.

 

Its hard to fix something that isn't broken.....Its not overheating

 

Just another thought.....you stated that it sat for 8 yrs....aluminum rad and dissimilar metals in engine causing electrolysis/corrosion build up in rad ?

 

If it aint't steamin it anit't overheating !
A little over 200 is ok

 

From my observations of the pictures I see two possible sources of you problem.

First, the fan looks like it is too far in the shroud. You should have no more than half the blade inside the shroud. The other is the spaces between the AC condenser and radiator. The air will follow the path of least resistance. So it may actually go around the AC condenser and only p*** through the sides of the radiator. Thus low/no cooling.

I have a AC condenser that is as wide as the radiator opening, but not as tall. So I put a filler below the condenser to direct the air through the condenser instead of under it.