In light of my overheating difficulties last year, I have determined I would be wise to have my radiator looked at by a professional before the driving season starts.
I haven't looked very much under the hood to see what is involved with removing the radiator, but I can't find anything about it in my reference materials. Does anyone have any advice on what needs to be done to remove it? Obviously disconnecting the hoses, removing the valence on top and presumably the grille will be necessary, but will I need to remove the fenders or the front nose piece which supports the grille? Anything else I should be aware of? Thanks,
It's been a long time but if you remove the items you mention along with the hood side panels. You will also have to remove the fan and hub, support rods and possibly the generator. That should give enough clearance. It is a good idea to cut a piece of heavy cardboard to cover the fins just in case. The other thing to plan for is "they are heavy" especially give the awkward path it takes to remove. Good luck, Harry
You only need to unbolt the radiator from the frame that surrounds it. This frame holds the shutters in place. The fenders are bolted to this frame. Therefore you do not need to remove the fenders.
Thanks guys, this gives me a clearer idea of what I'm facing. Hopefully it will lift right out and I can get that thing whipped into shape so I can quit worrying somewhat about overheating this year.
Procedure:
- Remove the air cleaner
Drain the radiator
Remove underbody closeout behind radiator so you can get to the lower hose
Remove lower radiator hose
Detach two underhood support rods (front of dash to radiator cover)
Remove triangular radiator cover / hood latch support assembly
Remove two upper hoses and heater hose (if installed)
Remove the fan assembly (it's a pain but you'll be happy you did this)
Remove the 4 lower bolts that attach the radiator to the radiator support assembly (engine side of the radiator)
Remove the 2 upper bolts that attach the radiator to the headlight support panel
See how wide those two headlight support panels spread apart - you may have to remove the front grill and the brace in front of the radiator shutters to get them apart enough to slide the radiator up
The wire harness to the right headlight snakes its way through the clips on the radiator. Depending how that harness is routed you may have to disconnect it from the right hand light to untangle it from the radiator
Check that there are no tubes attached to the radiator drain (where lower hose attaches to radiator) and on the overflow tube
Radiator should pull straight up - get two people as it's really heavy
To install, reverse procedure
Wow Scott, thanks a bunch for putting that much effort into your description. That is Shop Manual worthy and should pretty much answer any questions anyone may have about removing the radiator.
After studying on it somewhat I have been inspired to try something else before I get too involved. To wit, I'm either going to rent or buy a thermal imaging camera (I'm still up in the air on that point, but leaning towards buying one as I can think of dozens of uses for it) and shoot some pictures of the engine and radiator at say five minute intervals. This should give me a more precise idea of what's going on regarding coolant flow throughout my system.
If I'm getting red/yellow/white zones across the board in my radiator at temp, it should mean that I am getting good flow and don't need to remove the radiator. Similarly, if the block is getting the same red/yellow/white zones, I'll know the block is in pretty good shape as far as blockages go. If on the other hand, I'm getting big blue patches I'll have to proceed with removal and go from there.
I didn’t know that the IR cameras were that affordable. The last I looked, something decent (where you get enough resolution to see what’s going on) was still well over $1k and maybe closer to $3k. You could buy a couple of newly re-cored radiators for that. I guess if you can justify the cost and get some money back by using it for roof leak inspections or commercial/home energy inspections it might be worth the cost. Keep in mind it’s a diagnostic tool and doesn’t help you to fix the issue. I’ve used IR cameras in my work at GM and as a firefighter so have some experience.
The most likely causes of overheating is blocked tubes in the radiator or fins that are no longer soldered on to the tubes. Another would be block full of gunk. Another is the overall lack of airflow through radiator (sometimes shutters aren’t held open or closeout panels get lost over the years). Water pump impeller clearance could also reduce flow a bit. Leaky head gasket or cracked block would create problems.
Keep in mind that infrared cameras can only give you the surface temperature of an object. If you are looking at that piece of pork on the grill, it won’t tell you what’s going on inside so won’t help you to avoid trichinosis. Using it on your engine or radiator is similar as it can give you the skin temperature but won’t tell you details of what is going on inside. You need to understand those limitations before using it as the final tell all. That all said, an IR camera CAN tell you a lot. By looking at trends in the skin temp you may see hot/cold areas which may find some problems that wouldn’t be readily apparent. If you can see a cold spot in your radiator, you’ll know you have an issue. However, if it looks fairly uniform that doesn’t mean the inner core tubes are not blocked. If you can angle the camera around and look through the outer fins you may see more but you need some good resolution for that. Your engine block is the same way. You would think that the block should be a fairly uniform temperature, but normal convection on the surface and conduction through casting features will cause hot/cold areas. Again, if the skirting along the engine block looks cold in one area or side, then it’s probably full of junk or if one upper hose is a lot cooler than the other it may tell you which head to pull off.
I have a suggestion for you. Give your local fire department a call and see if they have an IR camera (most all do). Ask them if they would be willing to evaluate your engine and cooling system if you drove over there one day or evening. Offer them a $50 or $100 donation. There is always a newbie on the department that one of the seasoned folks could provide a little training for, so it ends up a win/win. If nothing else, it will help show you what you can and can’t see. You will probably have to pull the side panels for a good look at the engine and could always pull the front grill to look at the front of the radiator. Good luck.
Scott
Hello Jon, Over on the AACA club forum they are excited about a new way to clean the rust from an engine block. Drain the coolant and replace it with Evapo Rust rust remover and drive the car. This is supposed to work very well without disassembling the engine and the radiator. Look at "The car which shall not be named III" under the "our cars and restorations" category. Look on the Evapo Rust website. They have a a special product just for this use called Thermocure.
Quote from: Tom Boehm on February 03, 2020, 05:40:00 PM
Hello Jon, Over on the AACA club forum they are excited about a new way to clean the rust from an engine block. Drain the coolant and replace it with Evapo Rust rust remover and drive the car. This is supposed to work very well without disassembling the engine and the radiator. Look at "The car which shall not be named III" under the "our cars and restorations" category. Look on the Evapo Rust website. They have a a special product just for this use called Thermocure.
Evaporust has been around for a while and works really well for de-rusting parts. Definitely will help convert rust from exposed steel but won't unplug radiator tubes or get rid of sludge. It basically removes the iron from iron oxide and keeps it in suspension. I would use it on an engine that I desludged or radiator that I flushed the junk out of.
Quote from: LaSalle5019 on February 03, 2020, 02:19:05 PM
I didn’t know that the IR cameras were that affordable. The last I looked, something decent (where you get enough resolution to see what’s going on) was still well over $1k and maybe closer to $3k. You could buy a couple of newly re-cored radiators for that. I guess if you can justify the cost and get some money back by using it for roof leak inspections or commercial/home energy inspections it might be worth the cost. Keep in mind it’s a diagnostic tool and doesn’t help you to fix the issue. I’ve used IR cameras in my work at GM and as a firefighter so have some experience.
The most likely causes of overheating is blocked tubes in the radiator or fins that are no longer soldered on to the tubes. Another would be block full of gunk. Another is the overall lack of airflow through radiator (sometimes shutters aren’t held open or closeout panels get lost over the years). Water pump impeller clearance could also reduce flow a bit. Leaky head gasket or cracked block would create problems.
Keep in mind that infrared cameras can only give you the surface temperature of an object. If you are looking at that piece of pork on the grill, it won’t tell you what’s going on inside so won’t help you to avoid trichinosis. Using it on your engine or radiator is similar as it can give you the skin temperature but won’t tell you details of what is going on inside. You need to understand those limitations before using it as the final tell all. That all said, an IR camera CAN tell you a lot. By looking at trends in the skin temp you may see hot/cold areas which may find some problems that wouldn’t be readily apparent. If you can see a cold spot in your radiator, you’ll know you have an issue. However, if it looks fairly uniform that doesn’t mean the inner core tubes are not blocked. If you can angle the camera around and look through the outer fins you may see more but you need some good resolution for that. Your engine block is the same way. You would think that the block should be a fairly uniform temperature, but normal convection on the surface and conduction through casting features will cause hot/cold areas. Again, if the skirting along the engine block looks cold in one area or side, then it’s probably full of junk or if one upper hose is a lot cooler than the other it may tell you which head to pull off.
I have a suggestion for you. Give your local fire department a call and see if they have an IR camera (most all do). Ask them if they would be willing to evaluate your engine and cooling system if you drove over there one day or evening. Offer them a $50 or $100 donation. There is always a newbie on the department that one of the seasoned folks could provide a little training for, so it ends up a win/win. If nothing else, it will help show you what you can and can’t see. You will probably have to pull the side panels for a good look at the engine and could always pull the front grill to look at the front of the radiator. Good luck.
Scott
Thanks once again Scott for coming to the rescue with some insightful, first hand experience. Admittedly, the units I was looking at run in the $2-300 range so definitely aren't top of the line models. Certainly, I wasn't expecting anything with X-Ray Vision or anything like that :D
After giving some thought to your advise, perhaps the best thing for me to do is rent a Flir unit which my local Home Depot has. Certainly a more expensive model which should be higher quality...and will only run about $50. Got together with a buddy of mine last night (who owns a 58 Caddy) and we got to talking about this. Unbeknownst to me, he apparently he has an engine hoist so when the time comes, he's going to bring it over and help me pull the radiator.
Quote from: Tom Boehm on February 03, 2020, 05:40:00 PM
Hello Jon, Over on the AACA club forum they are excited about a new way to clean the rust from an engine block. Drain the coolant and replace it with Evapo Rust rust remover and drive the car. This is supposed to work very well without disassembling the engine and the radiator. Look at "The car which shall not be named III" under the "our cars and restorations" category. Look on the Evapo Rust website. They have a a special product just for this use called Thermocure.
Thanks Tom, I'm very familiar with Thermocure...Two summers ago I ran a batch of it through my system, and did it once again last summer. It certainly does something, though I'm not sure how effective it has been because I don't get quantity of filth out of it that I would expect or liked to have seen. My suspicion is much like Scott in that it may have turned some rust into sludge which has helped further block the radiator tubes which were already experiencing some buildup problems. Ironically, it may well be that which is causing the very problems I am having now.
Thanks again guys, I really appreciate the help and suggestions.