The Radiator Hokey Pokey

Note: This work was actually done about a year and a half ago, we just started the blog late.

As stated in the last post, one of the first priorities was the radiator. The radiator was known to leak. In fact, it was so leaky that my brother had removed it from the car a few years before.

Replacing the radiator was seen as a relatively simple project to start with, and for the most part it was. The radiator is held into place by 4 bolts, 2 on each side. The plan was simple:

1) Buy a new radiator, upper hose, and lower hose

2) Bolt the radiator into place

3) Fill it full of coolant/water (note: The thermostat had been removed years before, as a result we didn't have to worry about getting the car hot to circulate the fluid).

We purchased the parts online from a company called NPD (National Parts Depot). They are very well known among the Mustang Restoration hobby. While, not displeased with their service, you will find in future posts that we have gone predominately with Mustang Mania, a local company, for our future part needs.

Upon receiving the new radiator, we noticed some differences between it and our old radiator. First, the new one had 2 extra ports in it for connecting a transmission cooler (something our car doesn't have). We simply left these ports open. The second thing we noticed was that the new one had a welded in draincock. Specifically, it had a welded in draincock that didn't work.

The draincock seals, it just won't open to allow for easy draining of coolant. We decided that the few times we would have to drain it we could just pull the lower hose and made the executive decision to use the radiator as is. Little did we know how many times we'd have to drain the radiator.

After installing the radiator in the car, we noticed another difference between the new radiator and our old one. The new one is wider. The original radiator had 2 rows, the new one has 3, thus it is wider. The NPD catalog states that you should have a clearance of at least 1/2", preferably 1" between the radiator and the fan. Ours was closer to a 1/4". So, we put the radiator in, took the radiator out, and went in search of a shorter fan spacer. After installing a shorter fan spacer, we had the proper clearance and we were good to go. This was the first lesson of this project, check the relative thicknesses of the old versus new radiator and make sure your fan spacing is proper.

Our second lesson wasn't realized until many months later. You will notice that our above plan didn't include flushing out the engine block. When a car sits for as long as ours did, it's important that you thoroughly flush the entire cooling system. Rust, debris, and corrosion will clog up the system and adversely affect cooling performance. Since doing this original project, we've had to deal with overheating issues partly caused by insufficient circulation. We probably could have saved ourselves a lot of effort if we had done a good job flushing the cooling system at the very beginning.

So, one small project with at least 2 lessons learned. We're making good progress.