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22" to 26" radiator conversion question

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Sublime70

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I want to install a new 26" radiator in my 68 charger, which currently has a 22 inch. I see some vendors sell the right side radiator support. Does anyone know if this is all I need to install the new radiator properly? I can't find anyone selling a left side support so I'm guessing I just need to drill new holes in the original left side support? Any help would be appreciated.
 
You use the mounting holes on the driver's side. They are in the proper location. The hole was "widened" on the passenger's side only
 
Yeah, looking at it again, the left side holes look correct. I was thrown off because I thought they were a little too low. The top of the 26" radiator tank looks like it will sit slightly lower than the top bar of the rad support, while the tank of the 22" sticks up past it. I guess that's the way its supposed to be though.
 
69 Runner said:
You use the mounting holes on the driver's side. They are in the proper location. The hole was "widened" on the passenger's side only
Click to expand...

Yep, :yes: Left sides are the same I have seen too many people change the whole core support to go to 26 in. rads, Don't do it, leave the upper tie bar, the bottom and the left side in place, I have converted many cars with just the right side piece, it works great.
 
Sublime70 said:
I want to install a new 26" radiator in my 68 charger, which currently has a 22 inch. I see some vendors sell the right side radiator support. Does anyone know if this is all I need to install the new radiator properly? I can't find anyone selling a left side support so I'm guessing I just need to drill new holes in the original left side support? Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...


Yes, that is all you do, that is the way the factory did it, a simple change of one side makes a 22 a 26.
 
Thanks guys. I was a little concerned I was going to have to change the whole damn support, but just cutting out the right side and welding in the replacement won't be too much of a hassle. I picked up a '66 300 with a healthy 383 and I'm going to do a drive train swap this spring and want to go with a new 26" radiator in place of the 22" that's in there.
 
By the way, yeah, after reading the comments from you guys I see what the factory did. The 22" radiator is centered to the engine compartment, not the motor. It doesn't have a shroud but I guess it takes some kind of offset shroud. The 26" radiator looks like it will end up being centered to the motor, so hence all the extra width of the radiator ends up on the right side.
 
I had the original 22" in my 69 Bee recored using a 3 row core that had the SAME AS O.E. fin count. This is VERY important. Higher fin counts HURT the cooling on these cars. Then I installed a clutch from a 383 powered C body with a 22" (an odd duck for sure) and a factory fan shroud (wish I remembered what it was off of). I ran a 180 Robert Shaw T-stat (same as the fancy Mr. Gasket and same as O.E.) and on a 60* day twisting 3400 down the highway it wouldn't hardly reach 170*. Hot day it never got past 180*
 
69 Runner said:
I had the original 22" in my 69 Bee recored using a 3 row core that had the SAME AS O.E. fin count. This is VERY important. Higher fin counts HURT the cooling on these cars. Then I installed a clutch from a 383 powered C body with a 22" (an odd duck for sure) and a factory fan shroud (wish I remembered what it was off of). I ran a 180 Robert Shaw T-stat (same as the fancy Mr. Gasket and same as O.E.) and on a 60* day twisting 3400 down the highway it wouldn't hardly reach 170*. Hot day it never got past 180*
Click to expand...


I agree.

I have stated many times that people try to re-invent the wheel that Mopar employeed expensive engineers to design these things. if you use the above stated radiator, a shroud, and a clutch fan you will not have problems unless maybe you start cheanging rear end gears and running hard for extended periods. That is the reason mopar made the HD cooling std. with gear packages.

Mopars never really had cooling problems when new, no reason for them now if you follow the factory's lead.
 
moparstuart said:
When have mopars not had cooling problems ? All mopar big blocks that i have owned have had heating problems at one time or another .
Click to expand...

Never when new with the exception of the winged cars with the pointed front end and little opened frontal area for cooling.

I sold these cars new and we never had a customer complaint or warranty/service problem with this matter.

I think that when the problems start is when people buy an old car with original radiator that the core is plugged from years of use without flushing and added stop leak. Then they start seeing ads for the "ultimate" radiator which is thicker with too much fin count (too close to one another blocking the air to the tubes rather than dispersing the heat) and electric cooling fans. They put these thing on their cars leave the shroud off and then wonder why they have problems. I am not a fan (pun intended) of electric cooling fans either. The are fine for new cars where they are placed over the entire radiator surface to blow the heat off of the tubes but seldom do people do this when replacing their engine driven fan.

What most don't realize is that the combination of a good sealed shroud and proper placement of an engine driven fan is actually a wind vortex that forces the air being pulled through the radiator through every inch of the radiator core.

Actually all new cars with few exception had no cooling problems. Cars like
63-up Corvettes did, but again it had to do with the limited air flow on a pointed front end coupled with the radiator being placed under the hood of the sloping front end at a pretty good angle.

BTW, I have a Hemi car and a 523 stoker 6 pack both with 11 to 1 plus comprsssion with factory cooling set ups that have no cooling problems and I live in AZ.
 
moparstuart said:
Well you very lucky , I have had to work very hard to keep all my big blocks cool .
I know i am not the only one who has had to trace down over heating problems.
Click to expand...


Are you using factory type cooling set ups or are you a victum of the above mentioned "utimate" radiator and electric cooling fan senario?
 
I have a 69 Coronet, which I am in the process of converting from 22 to 26.
I have a 69 charger core support, so I installed the pass side in my Coronet, but the stock 26 " radiator will not bolt up. The distance between the mounting bosses needs to be 28". with just adding the pass side the spacing was 27 3/8. Not enough. I measured the drive side support which is still attached to the inner fender and frame.... what I found out is the driver side from the Charger is 1/2 an inch narrower than the 22 " You could make the stock radiator fit by widening out the holes.. but if you use anything but an exact replacment radiator you may not have the option as I found out. The actual opening of the core support is 1/2" narrower which will block part of the radiator core as well.

Not a huge deal... but I thought it was worth letting you know if you care about being correct. Oh and because the radiator needs to be moved over 1/2" to the driver side... you wont have to notch the frame on the pass side to keep the radiator away from being to close to the frame. I have heard that chargers have wierd things about them... mabey they are different. I really dont think so though, as when you order a core support for a b body, I think they will all interchange from 66 to 70. Correct me if I am wrong, but B bodys of that era share a ton a parts.

Anyway.... my 2 cents.


Dyno Dave
 
I too converted my 69 383 Bee from 22 to 26 inch radiator. I really didn't plan on it until about 7 years ago when I ordered a new what I thought was a 22" from Year One and they sent me the 26". I just layed it in and realized that all I needed was to drill 2 holes on the passenger side. I really hated doing that but it looked like the only way. What was weird to me was the car ran hotter after putting in the 26" than it did with the 22". So I got a shroud and it helped to keep it down but it still wasn't a cool as the 22". But it would be fine I was told. So after getting my engine rebuilt a couple years ago I would constantly fight with tyring to keep the temps down below 200. What worked prior to the rebuild didn't seem to work after the rebuild. I was seeing hotter temps. than before but I couldn't put my finger on why. So what I did after about 4 months of struggling was I went back to the original 69 manual and read the section on cooling. What caught my eye was when it said the space between the radiator and fan should be approx. 3/4" to 1-1/4 ".Mine was at 2 inches. And I knew why that and when it happened. Remember when I changed to the 26" radiator form the original 22" The 22" was slightly thicker than the 26" so it sat closer to the radiator. So I knew what I had to do. Found me a shorter spacer and now the space was 3/4 to 1". That took care of my heating problems especially in traffic. 180-190 all day. Works for me! So I do believe the biggest reason why we all have heating problems is like he said. We veer off course a little when changing form stock to aftermarket equipment. So the next time you guys are having overheating problems, make sure you have a shroud and your distance from radiator to the front of fan is 3/4" - 1 -1/4 away so you can pull more air through the radiator. Just make sure your fan is no more than 2/3 to 3/4 too far in your shroud. That sould take care of your cooling problems.
 
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