Posted by Dylan Robinson [99.196.230.133] on Sunday, October 11, 2015 at 22:37:46 :
Yes, it did have a stock radiator in it, and it was barely adequate. I didn't have enough room to run the original mechanical fan, so I put a large thermostatically controlled electric pusher fan on the outside. This setup seemed to work ok. I added a aftermarket mechanical heat gauge, even though the original was functional. When I did the conversion, I double checked accuracy of the gauge with an infrared thermometer. The engine is a slightly warmed over LA 318 out of a 71' Coronet. I've ran this setup for nearly four years, it seemed adequate at best, I could run it pretty hard in 85-90deg weather, and it would run right around 200deg. The heaviest thing it ever pulled was my two ATVs though. Four years, of unbalanced boggers at highway speeds proved to be to much for the original radiator. I was starting to see signs of leakage around the tank/core joints, and I had to have the inlet/outlet joints repaired a couple of times. I decided to see if I could find a replacement that I could get from the local parts store. I talked it over with a local radiator repair shop, and he said a lot of the local hotrodders are using a radiator out of a 70's Toyota Landcruiser. The radiator guy assured me even though I was giving up nearly 2gals of coolant capacity, that the new core design would make the cooling capacity more than adequate. Well long story short, its having some overheating issues currently, but, I think it will work if I change my fan arrangement to a shrouded mechanical.
Dylan
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