Harrison Radiator Applications & Identification for A-Bodies

The number on the bottom tag is the part number of the radiator as said by Dynaflow. If you look at the charts the part numbers are there and they all start with 301. Last number alone could be month?

 

I believe he's referring to this # (circled in red) which @Duane said is either the year of manufacture or the model year.

 

Dave,
Absolutely.

I used to get a kick out of how people talked in Central PA. when I lived there.

They would “wash” their car but they would “warsch” their clothes. They would also throw in a few “what for did you do that” comments every now and then. That one floored me.
Duane

 

The 30 on the SS tag is the number they designated for the core.

I have no info available for those numbers, however I remember the SB core being pretty thin compared to the one on the SJ rad.
Duane

 

I thought "warsh" was just a Baltimore thing (we "warsh" everything here - Clothes, cars, dishes, etc.). It's interesting how the accent evolves as one moves down the coast. We pronounce "on" with same "o" as they pronounce "off" w/in NY.

 

Guys,
If you use the number on the tag to figure the year, and the month code from the tank, you can figure out which month/year the rad was produced.

That is as far as you can get with radiator date codes.

This brings up another very important point. GM/Buick/ and their associated Parts Suppliers only specified date codes due to a part’s importance.

What I mean by this is the various manufacturers used date codes to track flaws with parts.

Radiators, heater cores, etc were only tracked per month. Seat belts were tracked per week. A bunch of parts were tracked by the day, and when you get to engine castings they tracked them even tighter. Engine intake manifolds were tracked by day of the year, by the shift, and by the approximate time during that shift.

The manufactures figured in the number of flaws in parts, verses the time/cost it would take to R&R a part, and then decided how “tight” to track them.

When you start to really get into this subject “date codes” , you start to see all kinds of things the engineers were thinking about, and begin to figure out why they did certain things.
Duane

 

That Warsh thing I believe is also an upper Midwest thing? I see the My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell is from Minnesota and on his ads he says My Pillows are machine Warshable plain as day!

 

I thought they had more of a Canadian accent, aye?

 

Here is the original radiator from a '70 GSX, automatic with A/C. This particular car was built 05/1970 and is still in the hands of the original family so we know this was the radiator that was in the car when it left the dealer's lot.

SW assembly with IA /XS (dated A) tanks.

 

I used that SW code on my 4 speed non AC GSX because it’s what I had. It had superior cooling capabilities. Gauge never went over a quarter.

can’t make out the last number after the part number on that tag.

 

...not quite, SW is 302...

...sure would like to put this folder of fragments I have into something meaningful. My radiator had been replaced and all I wanted was to learn what was OEM. That was 2019...

...my 2019 research turned up a page of info from doc named "AC Delco Radiator Core Application Book" showing core part# for SS radiator, which was used in '70 Cutlass and Monte. SS also used in '68 GS400. Has anyone seen SS tag with date code other than "8," at this point not clear what date code on tag means if a '71 has an "8" date coded rad. I really don't think Olds had an SS sitting around for 3 years...

...chart I have shows GSXes with A/C got SW, others got SJ...

...cooling options affected rad choice. XS tank only on SW, which was described as "HD Cooling." Unfortunately, between order form and '70 radiator chart, Buick seemed to use "HD Radiator" and "HD Cooling" inconsistently. In '71, changed to "HD Radiator" and "Extra HD Cooling".

 

I'm gettin a headache from all this info. Time to fry up some back bacon , have a few Molson Canadien wobbly pops and wax up my snow shoes. Gettin cold in the old igloo. Time to throw another lawg on the fire.