I see a red painted timing case cover, and a black painted block. Was someone in the timing case? Maybe the cam is too far advanced, and causing it to run hot? I had a problem with overheating once in a SBC Nova; turned out to be a broken centrifugal advance spring in the distributor allowing it to run too far advanced; I chased that one for a while. Be sure to post what you find that solves the problem I am Butch/56sedandelivery.
I see a number of issues... The trans cooler is in front of the pusher fan so the pusher fan is pushing hot air from the trans cooler across the radiator. The engine mounted fan looks like it could be closer to the radiator core. The fan shroud doesn't cover the entire radiator core. Going from a three row radiator to a 4 row rarely helps. Head gaskets are a major source of overheating problems. Lots of variables. What I would do is eliminate as many things as possible that are contributing to the problem.. I would remove the grill. I would remove or at least relocate the trans cooler until the over heating problem is solved. After I that I would test to see if there was any improvement. If not, I would remove the pusher fan and retest with only the engine fan. If that didn't help I would replace the head gasket. If that didn't help then I would look at replacing the radiator with a modern design with a full shroud. If at any point the overheating problem seems to be solved then I would add back the grill etc. one at a time and retest after installing each item. If, after installing a previously removed item, and things get worse, that is part of your problem so remove it again. Then try reinstalling some of the other items (one at a time and retesting). Any item that doesn't make the problem worse can be left in place for now. As squirrel pointed out, the ignition timing should be set at the factory setting. The water pump may be correct but if it came from China it too is suspect. The water pumps I see that are being reproduced often have a very inefficient stamped impeller instead of the original design which is often a cast impeller. The gasket that comes with the pump is often a lot thicker than the original which spaces the pump impeller less efficient. Get a Harbor Freight laser temperature probe and check the temperature at the top of the radiator core and at the bottom of the radiator core in three places across the core. You should see about a 16 degree difference from the top (hottest) to the bottom (coolest). Remember, do each step one at a time and retest after every step. Wholesale changes where lots of parts are changed at the same time is not your friend. It is hard to track down cooling issues and it takes patience. It is easy to introduce new problems while you are trying to fix the original problems.
With those pulley sizes, the water pump is turning slower than stock setups and is under driven. Try and get one that's about 3/4" smaller than the crank pulley. Always run a thermostat or at the very least a restrictor in the water neck and a good clean radiator and a good fan shroud that fits well to the fan blade. A good flex fan like Flex-a-lite can help also. We have seen radiators that looked clean through the cap hole only to find that the tubes in the bottom half were plugged after removing the tanks. Make sure the radiator is good. A good water pump is also a must in hot rods and performance stuff. We use Stewart stage 1 water pumps in most because they are good quality, have a cast impeller instead of a cheap stamped steel one, are of high flow design and reasonably priced. 25-30 dollar auto parts store water pumps are not that great in quality, made offshore and may be ok for regular stuff. I am sure some will say their car runs cooler without a thermostat or restrictor, and I am sure there are some that will, but most run hotter without one. Without a thermostat or restrictor, the water flow through the radiator can be so fast, the water is never in the radiator long enough to cool it. Case in point: We have a 68 Chevelle 396 in our shop now with cooling issues. Car had no thermostat or restrictor and a new pretty big 3 row copper radiator, clutch fan and a factory shroud.. The water flow was so fast through the radiator that when you would speed up the engine to around 2500 to 3000 RPM the radiator would actually go half empty. I have never seen that before. All I did was install a 160 thermostat and I have not seen the water temp go over 180 yet and its 90+ decrees in Chicago this week. The pulley issue may not be your problem but you have to start somewhere and do process of elimination. Bill
Looks ,like this is what he has/I have now. I have searching all, over no luck. https://www.amazon.com/Chevy-Short-...rd_wg=vzylF&psc=1&refRID=EMYTBK0FVC6V6X23DAT0 I may have to go to a speed shop or junk yard to get a smaller h2o pulley.
Hard to say, what he put on it seems to be... I don't know if this is a mod or stock pulley kit he put on it? https://www.amazon.com/Chevy-Short-...rd_wg=vzylF&psc=1&refRID=EMYTBK0FVC6V6X23DAT0
This maybe my only option if I am to get the smaller pump pulley ratio, not sure if this would change the speed of the pump though.https://www.amazon.com/Chevy-Short-...rd_wg=i5Sc1&psc=1&refRID=HB7DG730Q27V93N7K7KW
I've been there and done that on a '59 Willys wagon; only with a small block Ford in it. Tried everything; went to a four-row core radiator, tried it with a fan shroud, tried with a pusher electric fan and with a puller, changed water pumps and head gaskets, hoses and thermostats. One of the inherent problems with one of these is that you really can't put a wider or much taller radiator behind that pointy nose. 'Specially with a long SBF, though you might have enough room with the shorter sbc. Mine was my daily driver for almost 10 years and also used off-road. I finally gave up and put an oil cooler on it, then just quit worrying about it. Though it would get over 245 deg. on the coolant gauge on a long up-hill climb, it never boiled over with a 15 lb. cap and 50% anti-freeze... Just the nature of the beast I guess, though every small block Ford I've owned has had overheating problems. Never want another of them...
Went to the junk yard and picked up a smaller water p. pulley, 5 3/4". Crank is about 6 3/4". I can see better flow in the top of the rad. Still shoots up to 210-220. I got the harbor freight temp reader. Bottom of the rad is cooler than the top. I switched out the cap to a 13 psi instead of the 7, but than the battery went. So I will have to poss replace the batt to see if new cap helps. The PO lived in Denver so this may be why he used a 7 psi cap...? The left pulley is the old one/7".
Great info. I put the t-stat back in and I did not fill the rad to the top of the neck as suggested. I hard wired the pusher electric fan so it goes on when wagon starts up, may put a toggle switch on it. The pump is v belt, supposed to be new not rebuilt... I bought a harbor F inferred thermo detector. I ran the rig around town last night for about 15 miles at 40 mph. I checked the temperature sensor on the intake with the inferred temp gauge and it registered 25 degrees less than the gauge in the wagon. The t-stat is 160, when it opened the gauge on the dash said 185ish and the inferred said said about 160ish. . Anyway it did not throw fluid into the over flow tank last night or this morning. Fan looks good. No room for a bigger one. I think the PO had the rad built with the old rad bracket...did willys ever come with 4 core??? I took the fan shroud off...when I put my hand in front of it now I feel more air flow?? I will keep a watchful eye on it all. One thing the PO did was run the transmission lines to the cooler a few inches away from the headers..! I checked the temp coming out of the tranny and going back in a few inches away from the tranny on the lines. They both were in the 170s. At the cooler the inlet was 150ish and the out let was 110. Do you all think I could insulate the cooling/tranny lines going to the cooler or do I need to move them..? Thanks
Trans cooler shouldn't effect the whole cooling system much, I would leave the lines as is and just pull them away from the headers. Your main concern is the radiator inlet and outlet temps, it appears to be cooling the coolant. Drive it awhile and keep checking with the thermo gun at the t-stat housing and radiator outlet. Replace the temp gauge with a mechanical one just to confirm your in dash gauge is off.
I have Summit mechanical gauges in my car and my pusher fan comes on at 195 per the Spal spec and my gauge reads a little more like 200... close enough for me. I was going to toss the fan on and use a toggle, but I got a good deal on the fan with the relay, sensor, mounting brackets, etc. It works real nicely.
Quick question, I am not sure if I hooked up the transmission lines to the cooler correctly or the previous owner. From what I have seen on the internet...the bottom line from the tranny (outlet) goes to the bottom of the cooler and the return line from top of cooler to the top of tranny (inlet).... I have the lines swapped at the cooler. Thanks.
The radiator cap is 7psi you should have 14 to 16 psi which better pressurizes the coolant against cylinder walls to remove the heat. The 7psi will also lower the coolant boiling point.
Is your electric fan spinning in the right direction? Many are reversible by simply reversing the 2 wires.
what is altitude where you are at. Carb may be jetted lean as hell due to denver altitude. try swapping carbs. lean equals hot/overheat
This doesn't sound right. In your description, the trans "Out" would have to push the oil up the cooler, from the bottom side to the top, that's not right. The Out side of the trans should go to the top of the cooler, to let gravity pull the oil down through the cooler and return it to the transmission.
Yep, two schools of thought on this one. Pretty interesting. I emailed monster transmission this very question. Will let you know what the reply is...Thanks
Higher psi rad cap "better pressurizes the coolant against the cylinder walls to remove the heat". Curious..... Is this sound physics? I'm not a physicist. I am curious. Where's @gimpyshotrods??? Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
A higher pressure radiator cap raises the boiling temperature of the coolant mixture. Raising the boiling point of the coolant mixture reduces the likelihood that it will be turned to steam, when/where in contact with hot components. Steam would create an insulation barrier between the hot metal part an the liquid coolant, disallowing heat transfer. The notion that you can get more coolant molecules up against the internal surfaces of a vessel via raising the internal pressure with a high pressure relief valve (radiator cap), would imply that you can compress the coolant mixture. Water cannot be compressed (with forces found on Earth, anyways).
During Summer months you could run distilled water without any antifreeze and some added water pump lube to get things to run a little cooler. Just don't forget to put antifreeze back in for the Winter if you get below freezing.
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