Cool running! Or how I dropped 20+ degrees by spending $$ and scraping knuckles

Bob great post -- we seemed to have gotten off track here. I used the same Champion AE161 - JEGS price matched another vendor for $175. Inexpensive and well made. I feel far more comfortable with my drives this summer. I feared the potential for disaster from a "cookin". I kept the old Harrison in case I ever decide to recore.

 

Larry - no apologies needed. It's all related and while there may be some differences of opinion voiced it all adds to the knowledge.

Cheers!
Bob

 

Update after a week or more of 90*+ weather.

Read some other posts on the topic of fan clutch replacement and after finding out they were not that expensive, readily available and easy to replace I figured. 'Why not?' So I fitted a new standard duty fan clutch.

Drove to work a few times in the heat wave and leaving work one day the temperature gauge read 100* before I started the car!

Happy to report temperature control seems to be about as good as it could be with the changes made:

New aluminum radiator, 180 thermostat and standard duty fan clutch. Using 50/50 pre mix coolant. A/C compressor and plumbing removed.

On the hottest day with ambient temp of around 100* the car ran 180-190 under normal conditions. Peaked at 200 in 15-20 minutes of stop/start traffic and dropped right back to 180-190 once out on the open road.

Cheers
Bob

 

Just wondering why no electric fan(s)?

 

It's been suggested that a properly functioning clutch, fan and shroud provides ample cooling. It's also simple and requires no modification or high amperage wiring and switching.

Where I do think an electric fan system could add benefit is the ability to continue to provide air flow when the engine is stopped. However, unless coupled with an electric water pump I would guess the benefit is minimal.

Even on the hottest day the restart temp in the Electra after some stop start driving and a short shutdown is now 220 which was what it would run at before.

Bob

 

What are you using for coolant, since you did not flush the system?

 

Prestone pre-mixed 50-50

 

Did the Prestone come mixed with distilled water? Aluminum rads need distilled water. The minerals in regular water will create havoc in an aluminum rad

 

The container just shows 'water' as an ingredient so I asked Prestone. Their response was:

"Prestone uses demineralized water in all of our products that use water as an ingredient. Our demineralized water is functionally identical to distilled water, we just use a process other than distillation to remove the mineral content."

Cheers!
Bob