As a winter project I have gathered a bunch of "stuff" and want to build something I remembered as a kid. I want to build an east coast type of 50's build. I'm talking a severe channel on a '29 roadster where the rear tires rise just over the edge of the quarters. I'm using a model A ch***is that has been z'd 7" in the front and 22" in the rear. The distance from the top of the cowl to the bottom of the body is only 23". This only leaves16" from the top of the frame to the top of the cowl. I am using a 4" dropped I-beam with a reverse eye spring so I have my suspension down about as low as it will go. This is going to give me about 5" of ground clearance. The shortest radiator I can find is 21 1/2". I also want to use a deuce shell. Both of these add up to 22 1/2" which leaves me 6 1/2" above the cowl. Any ideas out there? I thought about t******* the back off the A front crossmember and dropping the radiator thru the frame behind it. This will shift the radiator back about 3". If I was running a hood It would work (i think) however I want to show off the engine. Besides a 241 with a 671 and 6 carbs would put a hell of a hole in a little hood anyway. It's **** like this that keeps me from getting a good nights sleep. I'm sure I could figure it out eventually, but hell, what are you guys for. Thanx for any help in advance. Norm
H i Norm. I don't have any ideas for you but I thought I would say hello. FAB32 and I talk about you every once in a while and wondered where you have been hiding. Hope all is well you. BTW we have a nice cruise at the Big Boy in Caro every other week. Come on up and say hello.
16" would be a short radiator, even a custom might be tough to keep cool. Put the radiator in the trunk?
The one thing you didn't mention in your post was cooling. A radiator that short will probably not have the cooling capacity to cool that motor, even worse if you run a hood. The 32 grille shell on my 27 is chopped 8.5 inches over stock and it just barely cools my 331 Ford with a big SPAL fan. I even have a 4 inch thick Br***works radiator in there and without that I am sure it would overheat. If you can drop the radiator down between the rails somehow, that will help. That is what I am going to do on my rpu project. Don
Take your radiator to a rad shop and have it shortened to the height that looks good. Then hide an another radiator under the back of the car somewhere. Pipe the coolant through the boxed frame rails.
Y'know, back in the 60's a friend of mine put a blown 392 in a T bucket and wanted the whole engine to show. He was kinda ahead of his time, and ran the alternator off the corvette rear end and ran a radiator under the turtle deck using the frame rails as large radiator hoses. His worked fine. About 20 years ago I had a 9500 lb jeep mud bogger with a rear mounted 460 ford. I ran the radiator in the front of the rig with 2" conduit running the length of the vehicle. Even had two electric fans on a large truck radiator. Never wanted to cool it. Tried several things without success. So I'm really not confident running a rear radiator. I think I'll drop it between the rails. I went out last night and measured a few things. I'm also building a rather large radiator shell with quad headlights that is going to be a bit longer than stock, so I think it will contain the radiator and keep it out of sight. Thanx for the feedback. If I could figure out how to post pictures here I would do that, however this 68 year old brain doesn't or won't allow that. Norm
A lot of the old East Coast heavy channeled hot rods,especially roadsters & coupesters positioned the radiator in front of the crossmember and made new drop down mounts to accommodate a standard radiator shell. HRP
yea this is what I would think would be the best solution. thats what I did on my channeled model A but its not nearly as radical or low as yours.
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