Radiator Considerations

The highway system in the US is aging. We all know that federal and state funds aren't adequate anymore to handle maintenance of old construction, let alone build new highways. Traffic snarls are becoming far more commonplace everywhere, especially along the East Coast population corridor - Boston to Richmond VA.

Traffic tie-ups weren't envisioned by the engineers who designed those cars that we now collect as classics. Other than making accommodation for a little rush-hour slowdown, the guys who designed the cooling system in your '56 Buick really didn't expect you to let the engine idle for 20 minutes at a time. If you did so the car overheated or the battery went dead because generators didn't recharge at idle. Everybody knew that.

Cars we drive today don't have such problems. You can leave a modern vehicle idling all night if you want and no harm will come to it. Cooling systems operate at plus-or-minus 3 degrees in most vehicles, which is most impressive.

That brings us to what things can be done to help cool our old cars. During restoration (or repairs) you should think very hard toward updating your cooling system. Keeping that original radiator is fine for the authenticity but won't help the engine any in today's traffic, be it stop-and-go or interstate speeds in excess of 75 mph.

Old radiator shells can be re-cored with modern, high-efficiency cores. It doesn't cost any more and it's well worth the time and trouble to have it done. Better yet, why not replace the original radiator with a modern aluminum thick-tube radiator? These things have incredible heat-rejection characteristics, often 2-3 times that of the original radiator. They can be had in a virtually infinite range of sizes, so fitting one to your car shouldn't be difficult.

Yes, the aluminum radiator won't look like your original nor is it likely that it will mount to the original flanges and fasteners. In the first case you could remove the top tank from your original radiator and epoxy it to the top of the new one, and with a little creativity it could easily look "original." In the second case you'll have to fashion some sort of mounting system but typically this isn't too hard to do.

Updating radiators is even more important if you rebuilt the engine to develop more power (and most hobbyists do that!) and are adding air conditioning. These things create more heat that needs to be dissipated through the cooling system.

We changed out the original radiator in our '55 T-Bird project, about which you will read in the near future. These cars were notorious for overheating anyway, and our addition of A/C and a transmission cooler certainly didn't help matters. There now sits an aluminum radiator in front of the engine and we've test-run the semi-completed car several times to make tuning adjustments and "dial-in" the AOD transmission fluid pressure. The engine has run for over 15 minutes at idle, with its temperature not exceeding 175 degrees on an accurate gauge. An original T-Bird under the same conditions would most likely be sitting well over 200 degrees and well on its way to boilover.

It's well worth making these choices early in the restoration process and, of course, your personal view of "original" will dictate the actions you take. Bear in mind, however, that the engineers who designed the car built it for the times. They built it with the technology available and for the way cars were driven, loaded, accelerated and stopped during those times and not for the future.

To a man (or woman, as the case may be) any of those engineers would tell you today that he/she would have chosen a modern radiator, alternator, disc brakes, radial tires, etc., over what was used if it fell within the budget. That's what engineers did, and still do.