I'm building a '30 Model A coupe - hiboy, no hood, with a frame that is swept 4" in the front. We had a '29 radiator shell on hand, so I mocked it up in position, and whaddya know, because of the swept frame, the '28-29 shell lines up quite well with the taller '30 cowl. So I decided to use it. Now to find a radiator. There are '28-29 radiators made by the likes of Walker and Griffin of course. Great products I'm sure, but way beyond my budget ($600+). And none of the other cheaper brands seemed to make one for the shorter/wider 28-29 shell. I researched here and found several recommendations for a '65-66 Mustang radiator as being best bet for fit. Well I bought one, and I s'pose with a lot of fabrication I might have been able to make it look ok (much smaller than the shell opening), but for that much work I was gambling whether it was gonna cool a big block Olds. Might be alotta work for nothing and a do over. So I started searching again, and learned something I've never read or heard of before: a 24-27 T radiator is an excellent fit for a 28-29 shell. There is still maybe 1/8" gap on the sides, and I had to do some bracket mods, but the radiator itself is near perfect, including the curvature of the top tank. I bought one for about $200 - Champion Radiator, Model CC1005, available from a few sources on eBay. All aluminum, 3 row, should have no trouble with the 455 Olds. I was amazed at the compatibility of the T radiator with the 28-29 shell - hope this helps somebody else with their build.
Bluedot got any measurments on the radiator? Is your car channeled? I have the same problem trying to find a radiator to fit. Working on a T coupe 27, Model A frame swept 3" in front, channeled 4" Might have to get one custom made...........PINCHER
Core is 18"h x 18.5"w. Overall 24"h (including tanks) by 22.5"w (including brackets). My car is not channeled - sitting on top of a Riley frame. Comment on the Champion radiator. While it appears well made, I would not call it a show car piece like a Griffin or Walker would be. More than adequate for my purposes. I don't like the aluminum look either for an open radiator type car - gonna get some of Eastwood's radiator paint to fix that. There are several Champion distributors on eBay. The two best I found were Radiators4Less and RadiatorGalaxy.
Look in Chester's book how to build a hot rod for under $3000. He has away to mount a mustang radiator in the 28-29 grill shell. inexspensive and looks good installed.
These work fine for most V8s in a stock 29 grille shell. http://www.ytmag.com/8N8005C_17763.htm Ford 8N and 9N tractor part.
97, Any idea of the dimensions of the unit you posted above? The site doesn't have any link for this that I can find.
There is a guy who sells alot on E-bay called DISSRAD. His # is 586-463-8722. He does alot of custom build radiator stuff in alluminum. Super affordable, and no epoxy, all tig welded. Good stuff in my opinion. He when I do mine for my truck he already gave me the price.
Just my opinion but 28/29 radiator shells look best on 28/29's and the same goes for 30/31 shells on 30/31's.. You probably can buy an inexpensive aluminum radiator to fit a 30/31 shell even if the shell is channeled(they sell 3" shorter radiators).....
I've been researching too. And I think that one would fit well. And you could just cap off the outlets to suit your application. Or they may offer a different arrangement. It's straight from China, but hell, ya can't complain about the price.
I don't think I mentioned that the Champion CC1005 I used has the SBC type inlet/outlet, but I believe the same radiator can be had with sbf or flattie arrangement. Scrappie, RE "Just my opinion but 28/29 radiator shells look best on 28/29's and the same goes for 30/31 shells on 30/31's.. You probably can buy an inexpensive aluminum radiator to fit a 30/31 shell even if the shell is channeled(they sell 3" shorter radiators)..... " <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->I agree with you, except that with a 4" swept frame, a stock 30-31 would be too tall. We had the 28-29 on hand, thus the mockup, and it checked out. Saved having to chop or channel a 30-31, and I did not want a chopped deuce shell. At the risk of opening a can of worms for my crummy work, here's a pic. Not in the same league as most of the cars I see here, but it will demonstrate what I mean about the shell and cowl on a swept frame.
Thanks Scrap. Looking at your avatar, I see why you say that. Very nice work! I cannot take credit - chop was done when I bought the body. Proportions are right, but it will take a lot of finish work to be like it should be. This car has been quite an "education" - thus its name, Nemesis. It'll be a safe driver, but beyond that, well, it'll just be a safe driver and leave it at that.
I have to second that! I have a AFCO T-Bucket radiator behind the '29 shell on my '29 roadster pickup. I reworked the brackets and made a lower mount and all fits fine.
Coupe looks good Bluedot. I would also be concerned about the Mustang radiator cooling the Olds. Looks like you made a good call on the T radiator.
Here's another site, which has the dimensions.... Ford Tractor radiators work well in hot rods....the Ford 5000 made in the 50s and 60s is slightly smaller and works for V8s in other hot rods.From 64 they had an oil cooler attached. It's easy to find them locally and cheaper if you just use Google or a similar search engine. Even searching the HAMB will find some threads about them. Aluminum radiators DO NOT cool better than brass and copper ones.... they are lighter for the same size or you can have a bigger/thicker one for the same weight which MAY cool better....if it will fit in the space. Most traditional hot rods are easily cooled with these cheap and easily available radiators. Maybe your local Ford New Holland dealer is your friend. Here's another one , it even has the filler in the middle at the top. http://www.tractorpartsinc.com/ford_tractor_radiators_7566_prd1.htm
Thanks for all the ideas, fellas. I guess I just was too lazy to do enough research. When done, I will claim my coupe had "traditional influence". I will not be able to claim traditional - too many store-bought aftermarket parts. Much of that due to my very limited fabrication abilities. My son and I informally call ourselves "Hammer & Hacksaw Engineering". There's a reason for that.
The more you get to look over other cars and how they were built, the more info you'll have to work with. The larger events & shows that open to many types are best. It's always worth lookin' at chassis work
Pit, I agree 100%. The underside is often more intersting to me than the shiny side. And some of the stuff I see inspires me to do the same, while other stuff inspires me to do it differently - just to be different. Example: sbc is best engine ever built IMO. But there are so many of them that I chose an Olds intentionally, knowing full well it would cost more to build and create more engineering challenges. And sometimes it's hard to find something to design that hasn't been done already. Prolly hurt resale someday too, but that's not why I'm building it. And that's why I'll only claim traditional influence, which pushes the limits a bit on this forum.
I would highly recommend Brice Thomas/ C,G&J- http://www.cgj.com/ Quality American made product, great people to deal with, willing to do something out of the ordinary for a customer. Shipping to Canada was reasonable too. I bought a rad for my '40 Chev, was pleased to find it has a pretty nice one piece, die stamped top tank.
I certainly hope so. Cost me a lot more to rebuild than an sbc would have. The big Olds is supposedly a lot of torque - I wanna smoke 'em at will. I had an Olds 215 in my last ride - went from smallest Olds V8 to the biggest, gas prices be damned.
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