68 Fury 3 questions

[68furyIII]

Okay so got home today and tried to install the new aluminum radiator. Its about 1 inch too wide. Not that big of a deal and the added cooling will be beneficial right? One side bolts up the other I'll need to drill two holes to mount it. The transmission lines in the radiator were a PITA to get off but a little wd-40 and pliers did the trick. I did notice a little smoking from somewhere near the left manifold. Appears to be a small oil leak maybe from the vent on the top of the valve cover. I took a video so I'll try to post that up.

Flushed the system a few times. Flushed the heater hoses. Ran it with water. Some crud but I guess my friend actually did a pretty good job cleaning it out. Water was flowing clean as pictured.

Going to take it back to the friends shop, have him drill the proper holes, then try and put all the new parts on. The new radiator profile is actually slimmer because the mounts aren't extended forward like on the stock one. So there is plenty of room for the new fan and fan clutch. Only issue might be theres too much space and I NEED some sort of shroud.

 

[68furyIII]

http://vid482.photobucket.com/albums/rr185/shaunmac9128/IMG_1111.mp4
Video of the smoking

 

[68furyIII]

Pictures...

 

[greasemonkeyman]

Looking good,did you run water thru the engine as well and hope it came out just as clean otherwise you may clog up that nice new aluminum radiator.The smoking looks like it could be from a slight oil leak from the valve covers coming into contact with the hot exhaust manifold or it could be an exhaust gasket leak or blowby due to worn valve seals.Nothing that can't be fixed without too much work.

 

[68furyIII]

Yeah i ran water through the old system, didn't want to mess with the new radiator.

 

[commando1]

Okay so got home today and tried to install the new aluminum radiator. Its about 1 inch too wide. Not that big of a deal and the added cooling will be beneficial right? One side bolts up the other I'll need to drill two holes to mount it.


Going to take it back to the friends shop, have him drill the proper holes, then

I would like it if you centered it instead. Just the way I do things. Yah, it's anal...

 

[bajajoaquin]

Going back to the clutch installation: On my Imperial, I had an aluminum flex fan which was awful. It made a hideous racket. I found a stock 7-blade fan from another Imperialist, and bought the clutch at the local parts store. The clutch and stock fan bolted right on, with no spacer needed. The spacer is there to replace the length of the clutch. Assuming you have a stock fan, you should be able to do the same.

Personally, I'd go with the clutch, a stock fan, and shop around for a shroud. The shroud will be the biggest element in improving cooling in that setup. It will really force the air to be pulled through the radiator at low speeds. At highway speeds, your car will probably be quieter, too. This is because the air pressure at 60 will push air through the radiator, keeping it cool. The clutch then goes loose, and your fan doesn't spin as fast. The fans are surprisingly loud.

 

[70NPORT]

Get the shroud. It will definitely make a difference. I observed a noticeable temp drop with mine.

 

[tallhair]

Okay so got home today and tried to install the new aluminum radiator. Its about 1 inch too wide. Not that big of a deal and the added cooling will be beneficial right? One side bolts up the other I'll need to drill two holes to mount it.

Going to take it back to the friends shop, have him drill the proper holes, then try and put all the new parts on. The new radiator profile is actually slimmer because the mounts aren't extended forward like on the stock one. So there is plenty of room for the new fan and fan clutch. Only issue might be theres too much space and I NEED some sort of shroud.

The side you posted is the side that get's mounted to the rad support.

What does the other side of the rad look like?

Does the new rad have a provision for mounting a shroud already?

There were lots of diff sized shrouds made with diff mounting points / positioning and number of mounting holes. What is the distance across and up and down for mounting points for a shroud? Some shrouds have 4 holes, some 5, and some 6. Of course you could drill new holes in the shroud too.

I have some shrouds in the for sale area.

 

[68furyIII]

I don't have it in front of me. However it appears to be the same as 70NPORT just posted. A champion radiator. Mine might just be slightly larger as I mentioned. Busy weekend but monday I'm having the new mounting holes drilled and then replacing the water pump, thermostat, new hoses and putting it all back together. With the clutch fan. And then I will get some measurements for what I can use for a shroud.

Or actually I might send the fan and clutch back and spend that money on a shroud instead....

 

[tallhair]

Before you drill and mount the rad please note the engine is not centered in the engine bay. So take that into consideration when mounting the rad. The shrouds are not all centered either.

Summit has a lot of shrouds. http://www.summitracing.com/search/part-type/fan-shrouds?sortby=Default&sortorder=Ascending

I have a shroud like this one.

6 mounting holes spaced evenly.

Holes are 25" apart across.

and top and bottom hole is 16 1/2 " apart top to bottom with one centered in the middle up and down.

I have 2 others handy here that have 4 holes and others in storage.

1 has holes 20" apart the other is about 22" apart.

PM for discussion if you are interested in any of the ones I have.

 

[68furyIII]

Thank you for the note about the engine not begin centered. I hadn't noticed/looked yet.

I will probably be interested. As I said car is not with me at the moment so can't get any measurements. I can post the measurements of the radiator I bought. Maybe that will help...

· Overall Dimensions: 23 1/4" high x 29 1/2" wide x 2 3/4" Tank Thickness

· Core Dimensions: 17 1/2" high x 26" wide x 2" Thick (3 row core)

 

[68furyIII]

Okay so update:

Got the aluminum radiator mounted up. Went pretty smoothly. had to drill a couple holes, but nothing crazy. Took the thermostat housing off to find there was no thermostat installed. I'm assuming this wasn't helping anything. The upper intake manifold below where the thermostat should have been was rusty, and had been empty and sitting for 3-4 days so I had to chance to clean it a little but it didn't look good. Installed all the new hoses filled up the system and started it up and things looked good then noticed that coolant was leaking from one of the thermostat housing bolts. My father tried to tighten it and went a little crazy and stripped the bolt. Half of it is still in the thermostat housing the other have snapped off with the bolt head in the wrench. Now I need to get a bolt extractor and new bolts for the thermostat housing. Also below is a picture of the old coolant after flushing the system. There was no oil on the surface but some crud for lack of a better work at the
bottom of the bucket.

Sidenote: I installed a 180 degree thermostat per recommendation in a previous post but now looking on rock auto it says 195 is stock. Should I just order a new one with the new thermostat bolts/housing?

 

[tallhair]

The thermostat is in the intake manifold on a SB mopar. If you just want to run a 2 bbl stock one for now I think I have a decent one you can have for shipping. It may have a thermostat housing on it .. if not I'll see if there's one I can locate.

Someone here probably has a stock tstat housing and bolts if I don't have one. It will be at least next weekend before I go to the storage though. I imagine I'll be there this weekend though.

You could also keep an eye out for a 340/360 4 BBL intake or a used aftermarket aluminum one for a reasonable price second hand if want to convert to a 4BBL at this time or getting the bolt out turns out to be a problem.

The 180 t-stat should be fine

 

[greasemonkeyman]

If the bolt was out recently since you just replaced the thermostat,remove the other bolt and see how much of the shaft of the broken bold is still protruding out from the hole. You may be able to get a "good" pair of needle nose vice grips and remove the broken shaft out that way without having to drill anything out. I've done it many times before with exhaust manifold bolts and water pump bolts. The key to it is to use a quality pair of vise grips and get them onto the broken shaft as tightly as possible and turn counterclockwise to extract that shaft. You can also use a plumbers torch to heat the surrounding area if it won't break free. Worth a shot before breaking out the drill.

 

[68furyIII]

Thanks for the advice and keeping an eye out. Converting to 4bbl carb doesn't really offer me much of an advantage aside from accepting more intake manifolds at this point right? I found the t-stat housing on rock auto for I think 12 bucks and was thinking of ordering it but it doesn't say if it comes with bolts or not.

As far as the leaking oil vent on the valve cover..should I look into new valve covers or is there a cheaper fix generally.

 

[kmccabe56]

Thanks for the advice and keeping an eye out. Converting to 4bbl carb doesn't really offer me much of an advantage aside from accepting more intake manifolds at this point right? I found the t-stat housing on rock auto for I think 12 bucks and was thinking of ordering it but it doesn't say if it comes with bolts or not.

As far as the leaking oil vent on the valve cover..should I look into new valve covers or is there a cheaper fix generally.

The cheapie stamped steel thermostat housings suffer to a degree to the same leakage problems as the rocker covers. If the bolt holes are dimpled towards the mating surface, you're well on your way to having a leak. So as greasemonkeyman suggests, pull the t'stat housing off to see if you can get the broken piece of bolt out. Also, check the flatness of the t'stat housing. You may need to dimple the bolt holes in the other direction as well as running the gasket face of it across a wire wheel until it's shiny. Ditto for the mounting surface on the intake. The t'stat gaskets are notoriously thin so having two perfectly clean flat surfaces is crucial to sealing that area.

Not understanding your leaking oil vent issue. Can you elaborate on that a bit further? Are you missing a baffle where the vent goes on? If you run the engine with the vent off the valve cover are you getting air pushing out ?

 

[68furyIII]

I haven't run it with the vent off yet. It just appears that there is oil leaking from the neck of it down to the headers which causes the smoke.

 

[commando1]

The cheapie stamped steel thermostat housings

Stamped?
Or cast....

 

[tallhair]

Thanks for the advice and keeping an eye out. Converting to 4bbl carb doesn't really offer me much of an advantage aside from accepting more intake manifolds at this point right? I found the t-stat housing on rock auto for I think 12 bucks and was thinking of ordering it but it doesn't say if it comes with bolts or not.

As far as the leaking oil vent on the valve cover..should I look into new valve covers or is there a cheaper fix generally.

You should be able to get the bolts at a parts store. The most pressing thing in my mind is getting the broken off bolts out of the intake manifold where the housing bolts on. That's why I offered the intake .. if you have trouble getting them out.

As long as the removable tstat housing / neck the heater hose goes on is not hurt no reason to replace that. Just clean the surface as suggested already and reuse it with some new bolts .. suggest hardened maybe grade 5 or better. If you do get the broken bolt out of the manifold chase both with the correct sized tap, clean everything up, paint if you want, and reassemble.