Tips/Advice for cooling
 

Hello,

My car, 69 Road Runner with a 383, has just lately been brought back to life and has been working just fine until today. I took the car for a cruise 30 miles one way then back again. The car ran great and the temperature was hovering around 190 or so. However once I got back into town I watch it slowly climb up to around 220. I started smelling coolant and by the time I had gotten home I could see coolant leaking out the "weep hole" in the water pump housing.

Easy fix however I figured I would ask if anyone had any recommendations first. This will be the 2nd water pump I've put on the car and I was wondering if anyone has had any luck with electric pumps or if that's more of a straight drag car type of pump?

Also, I've cored the radiator two times now while fixing leaks and trying to improve flow however judging by the look of the coolant I think I'm going to do a full overhaul on the cooling system: Radiator, hoses, housing, thermostat etc. Does anyone run an aluminum radiator with an electric fan in their's? The industry has swapped over to them on all newer cars so I figure it might be a good switch, but there are so many out there I'm looking to see if anyone trusts/hates any in particular.

Thanks for the read.
Joe

the aluminum radiator works good. i have on in my 67 plymouth whith the 225. and i also have a good electric fan set up as well. but what you could do is stick with your current radiator and fan set up and add an electric fan as a back up.

Put the larger 26" air cond radiator in it

Joe -

Welcome aboard!

You really didn't give us a lot of information. Did the car start heating up in traffic or with slower driving, or did it start by for no reason?

Are you running the stock radiator and fan? Is there a shroud?

Assuming you have a 190 deg stat?

Was the BLOCK ever cleaned out?

Yes, aluminum radiators work very well and electric fans are an option. On older cars, I think the electric fans are better suited for the track, where you want to squeeze every last HP out of the thing. For a street or show car, a BIG flex fan does the job.

Archer

Welcome to the forum. I am running a mild 440 and it liked to run warm in traffic too. I switched to a 26" aluminum radiator, flex fan and a shroud. It runs 180 city and highway now. I would say the shroud was the biggest factor though.

The car heated up when going light to light in slower traffic. In the past I haven't seen anything above 200 typically so I new something was up just not to what extent.

I found out the the culprit was a sticking thermostat and the only one here to blame is myself. The car had sat a while, 4 years, and the first thing on my list should have been changing out the fluids before going on a really long drive. I probably would have noticed that the thermostat was sticking while trying to purge the air and could have replaced it right there.

The prices for now have scared me away from swapping out to anything new so I'm going to replace the water pump, thermostat and do a nice cleanup on the system. I'm looking into shrouds as well.

Thanks for the replies.

A shroud is the BIG answer right there! Think of your carb, how it tapers to increase the speed of the flow. This is the "venturi-effect". The same principle applies to the shroud. No serious troubleshooting of a cooling problem can be done until this issue is resolved. Some cars can get away without it, but if there is an issue, this is step 1.

Welcome to the forum!