Cooling issues - and a weird question

65Fury440 said:

Good luck!! I am totally rootin for ya!!

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Hey, thanks! I appreciate that.
I should state, in support of your post, that in the past I've had two '68 Super Bees, one a 383 original and one with a transplanted 440. They both had the 22" radiators in them.
In fact, when I got the 440 4-speed one, it had a friggin small block radiator in it. I took off in it all the way up to a NeHOA meet in Chicopee, MA (with 3.91 gears no less). No shroud, nothing.
It did fine going up that hellhole known as I-95 UNTIL it got to be daybreak.
About that time, we hit the George Washington bridge and all I saw was burned out stolen cars up on blocks on either side of the road - and we hit the backup for the tollbooths.
Yikes. Temp gauge climbing all of a sudden, rapidly.
I look over to my right and see the lanes that went on the lower lanes under the bridge were open and flowing. I also saw those plastic orange lane divider sticks - and prompty ran them the hell over as I jumped into the moving lanes.

We finally arrived at our club meet HQ and some of the old hemi guys looked under the hood. Harlan says "wrong radiator, come with me". This guy, whom I didn't even know, takes me to his nearby shop and produces a radiator and hands it to me.
We go back, I install it in the parking lot of the hotel while club folks gathered and encouraged me on. Lots of beers consumed. Great dinner in the parking lot, too.
I get it done and we go for a ride.
Cured.
I ask Harlan what I owed him and he'd have none of it. He kept my old radiator and said "when you get another one at home, just send that one back when you're done with it".
You bet your *** I did.
I didn't know what that radiator was even out of....but found out later.
Yep, you guessed it - it was an original hemi radiator out of one of his cars.
Holy crap.
I was floored....

When was that NeHOA meet, 82 or83? Harland, I think was one of the hosts.

Fran Blacker said:

When was that NeHOA meet, 82 or83? Harland, I think was one of the hosts.

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Holy crap Fran, you were there? Wow, small world.
To answer your question:


"Hard Luck Award"
Yes, I've kept it all these years.

Heck, I'll do ya one better. How about this one?


I forgot who took this pic that night, but that's me and my full head of hair working on my '68 Bee in the parking lot. I remember that's Glen Fronheiser on the right.
Jeez, that was 33 years ago....

I'd kill to get that car back today:

I went to one in Chicopee not sure about 84. My work schedule was 4 days on and 4 off. Those years with 6 months seniority I worked holiday weekends. The way it worked out most of the time you worked Memorial and Labor Day weekends. New on job and the money was good so I did it.
Do you still belong to NeHOA? Saw in Aug news letter Glen had a relapse of his cancer, in treatment was improving. No news sense.

Ranger16 said:

Not sure what that means. If you look at the Edelbrock chart, there is a wide range (27 different combinations) of metering rods & jets. Unless you are talking about what it came with from the factory ("stock").

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Yes, I was talking about the stock factory jetting/rods. The chart is a tool to use if you want to richen or lean the circuits for cruise and/or power...Too many guys change things on carburetors without proper knowledge of what they're trying to fix.

Fran Blacker said:

I went to one in Chicopee not sure about 84. My work schedule was 4 days on and 4 off. Those years with 6 months seniority I worked holiday weekends. The way it worked out most of the you worked Memorial and Labor Day weekends. New on job and the money was good so I did it.
Do you still belong to NeHOA? Saw in Aug news letter Glen had a relapse of his cancer, in treatment was improving. No news sense.

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No, when I moved to TN in '95, I let my membership lapse - doc's orders in those days was to go here to heal or pretty much I was a dead man.
Little did he know how close to truth he was - I did wind up doing so twice more, along with the 3 bouts with cancer.
Anyways....
I still have NeHOA on my facebook, so I keep in very distant contact, but I'm pretty sure all those folks I knew back then have probably long since forgotten "the Virginia Boys", as my friends and I were known as back then.

I paid $2500 for that Super Bee back in like 1982.
Good Lord....

If you're still in touch with those folks, let them know I'm still alive please.
I also have a TON of pics and such from the meets in the early and mid-80's.

coloradodave said:

Yes, I was talking about the stock factory jetting/rods. The chart is a tool to use if you want to richen or lean the circuits for cruise and/or power...Too many guys change things on carburetors without proper knowledge of what they're trying to fix.

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Yessir, indeed. I have what the carb came with, the chart to tune with and a complete tuning kit. Should be all set to play with it once I'm done with this cooling job.

Playing around in the garage after a long, hot day on the tractor.
Test fit the radiator and I need to notch the passenger side a little.
Out comes the Dremel:


Using an existing mounting hole on the drivers' side, I set it in there and placed a square on the centerline of the water pump:

Centering looks dead on, at least horizontally.
Vertically, not so much:

Improvised a pointer and marked halfway up the core:

Reckon she needs to raise up a little.

The engine isn't sitting plumb like the radiator is - the engine is canted upwards towards the front.
Is that normal?
EDIT: Professor Ehrenberg informs me that it is indeed normal.
He's concerned about my clearance between fan clutch and radiator, though.

Finally, temporarily stuck the new Hayden "short" fan clutch on to check clearance:

"Squeak"
About 3/4" clear on top, 1/2" on bottom.
Mercy.

That's going to be reduced a bit when you install your water pump pulley. Also make sure your motor mounts are in good condition. Hate to ruin that new radiator with a panic stop! I ended up using a mechanical fan with a short spacer to place the fan correctly in the shroud. Not enough room for the clutch unit. On a street car what's a few horsepower?

coloradodave said:

That's going to be reduced a bit when you install your water pump pulley. Also make sure your motor mounts are in good condition. Hate to ruin that new radiator with a panic stop! I ended up using a mechanical fan with a short spacer to place the fan correctly in the shroud. Not enough room for the clutch unit. On a street car what's a few horsepower?

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That's a good point. The motor mounts are good and solid, but they do have rubber in 'em, of course.
I never even considered why this car had a clutch fan - it just came that way when I bought it and I've kept it ever since, since the whole thing is basically new.
I just figured the 7 blades and all that were about as good as it gets, cooling-wise.

I have a stigma against flex fans - I had one of those explode and take out the radiator and fan belt in an Olds I owned what, 30+ years ago? It was the "brand name" one, too.

What fan would I use now if not the factory clutch/7 blade setup?
What is the "proper" spacing off the radiator the fan should be?

EDIT: Answering my own questions again....allow me to work all this out here:
- According to the Flex-A-Lite site, anyways, the fan should be at least 1" off the radiator AND be centered half-in/half-out the shroud.
- Further, there should be at least an inch clear around the tips of the fan blades in the shroud opening.
-My new factory 5-hole shroud has an opening of 20.5" and is 2" thick.
-The new Griffin radiator is 3" thick
-The distance I have from the hub of the water pump to the radiator core support is 6.75" minus the approx. half inch or so of that raised "bead" molded into it on which the radiator sits, so say 6.25" total.
- 6.25" - 3" = 3.25" from face of hub to face of radiator
- The new Hayden clutch is 2.75" thick and the stock fan sits back .75" of an inch off the face of it (and off the face of the factory clutch as well), so the front edges of the 7-fin fan are effectively 2" from the mounting hub of the clutch
- 3.25" - 2" = 1.25" from radiator face to tips of fan blades, less a little bit for the thickness of the fan belt pulley sandwiched in there

That seems do-able and pretty good fan placement off the face of radiator.
However, there's the elephant in the room in the fact that there is that .75" thickness of fan clutch forward of the fan - that is ultimately what will contact the radiator first if Armageddon occurs.
It's only going to be .5" off the radiator in the best of circumstances, which is pretty much what I witnessed in the mock-up.
Yikes. Motor mounts best be damn good.

Finally, the stock fan diameter is 18" and the shroud opening is 20.5". Pretty much perfect there. Hey, it's almost like Ma Mopar figured this stuff out already.
As long as I can manage to mount the radiator perfectly centered on the centerline of the water pump, that part works nicely.

So...do I roll the dice with the shorty Hayden clutch knowing it comes within half an inch or so of the radiator - but works great on fan placement?
The alternative is what, a direct fan with a 2" spacer?

Oh, I almost forgot one of the most critical dimensions here:
The stock fan on the clutch now has vanes that are 2.5" from front of sweep to rear.
If the goal is to get the fan positioned half in, half out of the shroud (remember: shroud is 2" deep), then that means the fan should be positioned with its' leading edge .75" from face of radiator!

That would call for the face of the clutch being dead ON the face of radiator, which isn't going to happen, of course.
So much for that half in/half out guideline for fan placement, at least with a clutch fan....

I'm thinking the best scenario for a clutch fan in this particular setup would be to get the clutch no closer than .75" from the radiator and letting the fan be 1.5" away from the radiator.
Anything closer risks damage to the radiator and anything further away diminishes the effectiveness of the shroud.

EDIT, Part Deux:
I was just out in the garage. Mounted the fan to the Hayden short fan clutch, then mocked up the belt pulley, fan/clutch combo and stuck the Griffin in there.
Looks to be a little less than an inch space up top, 3/4" on bottom of clutch.
A little more than the numbers came out.
Makes me nervous as heck, but I can't see any way to move the fan back towards the engine, either - the sweep of the backside of the fan blades are real close to the alternator nose as it is.

Dang - how does such a big car have such a small space to get all this in there?

Answer: It's the design of the water pump. Lots of horizontal space being taken up with the housing, pump and particularly the pump snout.
Ma could have done a shorter snout on the pump and coupled it with a shallower pulley and helped us out here.

I'm thinking the best scenario for a clutch fan in this particular setup would be to get the clutch no closer than .75" from the radiator and letting the fan be 1.5" away from the radiator.
Anything closer risks damage to the radiator and anything further away diminishes the effectiveness of the shroud.[/QUOTE]


Using the Hayden short clutch on my '62 the clutch face is about 1/2" from the radiator. It cools fine. I use a torque strap as an added safety measure. It seems strange to me that your clutch is so close. Supposedly '66 and up k frames move the engine back 3". If that's the case it seems to me you should have more clearance. That is, unless your radiator is 3" thicker than stock?

Rick62 said:

Using the Hayden short clutch on my '62 the clutch face is about 1/2" from the radiator. It cools fine. I use a torque strap as an added safety measure. It seems strange to me that your clutch is so close. Supposedly '66 and up k frames move the engine back 3". If that's the case it seems to me you should have more clearance. That is, unless your radiator is 3" thicker than stock?

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Thanks for replying.
Sounds like yours is about exactly the same as mine is going to wind up being.

Beats me on the later k-frame thing. I've had a handful of these '68 b-bodies with 440s in them and their valve covers have been pretty darn close to the firewall as it is, so I can't see them moving back any more than they are??

The "stock" 3-core radiator I had before is about 2.5" thick in the core; the tanks are 3" or so.
This Griffin radiator is 3" thick everywhere.
I'm no doubt further complicating things by mounting it on a 22" radiator support (it's a 26" radiator, just like the 3-core one before it), but these things shouldn't be so squeaky tight, for heavens' sake.

Here's an option if you're too worried: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/aaf-all30100

Ed just checked mine with new Mishimoto rad(2-1/2" core) 26" mounted on stock 22" support with an old fan clutch. 1" clutch to rad.,1-1/2" blade to fan; almost centered in an old factory shroud w/7-blade factory fan.Im not worried about eng. movement because I'm still using amoroso solid steel m.mounts from when I raced my Bee.

Forgot the picture.

Also the fan is half-in the shroud.