RagTop
Old Grumpy
When I lived in the S.F. Bay Area I thought I had managed the overheating problems displayed by my 302. I had replaced the stock 2 core rad. with a 3 core. I installed a shroud. I had replaced the green stuff with distilled water and Water Wetter. I had replaced the 180* stat. with a 160* model. At one point I even had a Flex-A-Fan on it until the machine shop that rebuilt my short block advised me to go back to the stock 4 blade fan because they wouldn't warranty the engine with the Flex-A-Fan on it. The car always ran at about 1/3 of the temp gauge with oil pressure up toward the top of that gauge. The only time I had any problems was when the car was asked to idle for extended periods. Bumper to bumper traffic, parades and fast food drive thrus were always a challenge. Now, in sunny Sacramento, where the car sees ambient temperatures well into the hundreds on a regular basis, the temp gauge is showing half to 3/4 gauge whenever I drive it. I just swapped the 4 blade fan and the little short spacer (1.25") out yesterday for a stock type 5 blade (funny looking thing) and a longer spacer (2.25"). The fan is further into the shroud now (about 2/3 of the blade) and is closer to the core (around 1.5"). No joy. Some slight reduction in how it heats up, but no real relief from that scary approach to the dreaded "H". I'm pretty sure the real cause is the basic inadequacy of the 20" radiator to meet the needs of the engine at idle, but I'm also thinking that it is behaving somewhat like a car without a thermostat. I may swap the thermostat out, just because it's easy to do. BTW, I've returned to about 50/50 green stuff and, when I drained the radiator down last summer, what came out didn't show a bit of scale or rust. Any suggestions as to a next place to look or do I just live with this. An aluminum radiator is out of the question because I like to preserve the stock look. What to do?