Bought a '53 Effie with a '79 460 truck engine already in it. Previous owner said the truck had had a heating problem, but that he had replaced the stock radiator with a NEW stock radiator. It had two 10" electric fans on it. The truck still had heating problems. I put two 12" fans ( replacing the 10s ) hoping to move more air and I STILL have the heating problem. Okay, dove in and ordered up an aluminum radiator with a 16" fan and shroud. (gonna nip this problem in the bud) Drove it to Des Moines last weekend and STILL HEATS. Okay thought that MAYBE it's sucking the bottom hose shut at speed. It will idle around all day at 180 to 190, but out on the road........it heats. Ran home (150 miles) at 60 mph and it stayed at about 220 degrees in the cooler morning temps. Ripped out the bottom hose and put a coil in it. Took it for a 15 mile drive and it's back to the 230 degrees at 70 mph crap!! I'm stumped, any ideas?? New thermostat, new three core aluminum radiator, 16" fan WITH shroud. Next thing for me to do is pull the water pump and check the impeller...........but, when it heats and I pull to the side of the road, shut it off, and let the fan cool the radiator, start it back up, the temp gauge drops as the cooler water is pulled into the engine, so it seems to be working......... I've also 'burped it' or tried. I don't know what ot try next.
I have the same issue with my Dart. Runs cool around town...get on the highway and it starts heating up. Seems like I should be getting more airflow it would cool down. This all started when I put my weber Carb on it and it may be related to engine timing and whether it is running too lean. I re-did all my cooling system this winter and it still runs too hot on the highway. I'm going to play with the timing and adjust the carb to run richer.
The #1 thing to check is the separator plate behind the water pump, is it in there. A lot of times the pump is installed without the plate and it's a must have. Second thing to check is, are the head gaskets on backwards. 460's do not have heating issues unless someone made a mistake.
Make sure that all of the air that enters the grille has to go through the radiator. Not around it or over it. You may need to use a small baffle under the fan/radiator area to direct the air to the rear (just a straight flat piece). Make sure there is adequate space for the air to exit the engine compartment. ~Alden
Make sure your advance is working properly. If it's retarded at highway speeds, it will heat up. The advance in my car was frozen. Popped a new distributor in and now she runs cool, even with the a/c on.
Brand new HEI...........heated before AND after. Water pump coming off.........NOW! Got a set of 2:47s waiting in the wings. What gets me are these guys with a Hemi, cooling it with a heater core. I'm also running a louvered hood. Even heats with the hood OFF!
I think the problem is with that '79 block. They were super-thin to begin with, and if you take them out even .030 they really start putting a lot of heat into the cooling system. I sure hope that's not the case, but I fought that myself in a Tbird.
Just to cover all the bases, have you tried it with no thermostat ? I know, I know, everyone says you need one, but I am not running one in the 331 Ford in my 27 and it made a big difference when I pulled it out. We have also started using restrictor plates instead of thermostats and are having good results there too. Sometimes a fix that goes against all the rules is the one that works. I also agree that you might not be getting as much advance as you need. On Ford engines I always turn the distributor until it cranks slow and then turn it back just a tad so it starts ok. Fords seem to like a little more advance to run right. Don
If you are overheating going down the road, your cooling system doesn't have enough capacity to reject the heat that is being created. All of the other suggestions to check timing and the water pump are great, but at the end of the day you may need a better rad. Get rid of that aluminum piece and put a proper brass and copper rad back in. Copper has a significantly higher heat rejection coefficient than aluminum. I would suggest a 4 core unit made by US Radiator. I have had very good luck with their rads cooling problem child motors. http://www.usradiator.com/ford-truck-1953-56-6-cyl-radiator.html Good Luck
That "aluminum vs brass" argument is always open to discussion. Personally I will take aluminum over brass any day, but that is just my opinion. The radiator evidently is up to the task because it will idle at 180 all day, it is going down the road he has the problem. Don
my Dart never overheated till I messed with the carb and the timing. Yeah I need to check the vacuum advance too.
The radiator is rejecting all the heat the engine makes at idle...but not all the heat it makes going down the road, when it's under load. There are a bunch of possible causes, one case I know of the guy ended up having to rebuild the engine again, and that fixed it. What rear gears are in it now?
Not quite. An engine generates much more waste heat running down the road then it ever will sitting and idling. However, the radiator is also working much more efficiently at highway speeds because much more air is flowing across it. But with the OP's truck at some point (between idling and cruising) the capacity of the rad to reject heat becomes less then the engines capability to produce it. In this case, the cooling systems capacity needs to be sized to highway load requirements, not idling. And as Squirrel says, there can be a number of possible causes, and a number of good things to check have already been thrown out there. A few more details about the engine and trans combo could also be usefull and then hopefully the HAMB will produce a few more good suggestions as well.
Running what I believe to be '79 Ford truck 460, C6, and what gears? I dunno, I do know that at 70mph it's running in the neighorhood of 3000-3100 rpm (maybe like 4:11?) which I know is too fast, for me anyway. That's why I'm planning on changing the diff. to the 2:47 setup. I think that will help the heating issue, but I still think if all was well, cooling at the higher rpm shouldn't be a problem.
Do you have a shroud in front of the radiator to the grille? If not, you could be running air out the back, over the top and in the front.
I did fix a highway speed cooling problem in an old ford with a 351c by going from 3.70 to 3.00 gears.... If you don't find anything easy to fix on the engine, try the gears first and see what happens.
Ford went to cross flows for a reason IMO. In my days of driving across the California desert to the Colorado river with a mid 70's F-250 with a 460 and a camper towing a boat it always ran hot - never made a trip without the heater on in the middle of summer. That said, went to a cross flow and no more heat issues.
I had that Problem only once with my 71 Mark 3 Lincoln and thats when the Dist. was messed up! Changed the Dist & set the Timming and it went away thats a 460/365 hp C6 cruse all day long at 85 mph just my 3.5 cents
Radiator shrouded.......around the outside........ AND around the fan. I've said this before, but, I've seen guys cool Hemis with no more than an aluminum '32 radiator with the two opposite hose connections capped off. If you look at most Chrysler big blocks, chevys also, the radiators are SMALL. We'll see I'm taking it apart right now.
A lot of good suggestions, and I don't disagree with any of them. However, when using an electric fan you have to think of the airflow thru it as a constant that doesn't change with engine rpm. It will, at some point, become a blocker to the air trying to pass thru the radiator at highway speed. In the propellor industry, this is called 'tip stall' or 'blade stall'. Also, the radiator itself has a somewhat maximum ability to transfer heat, and as you increase rpm the water goes thru the radiator faster and faster, and in some scenarios can't transfer it's heat before it gets back to the motor. We learned many years ago on circle track cars to put a restrictor in the upper hose to counteract this, made easily from a frost plug. In your case, I'd start with about 3/8- 1/2" hole and experiment from there. You can probably tell, I'm not a 'fan' of electric cooling fans. I think you'd be much better off with a conventional clutch fan and shroud, since it sounds like maybe your radiator capacity is borderline. Newer cars that use electric fans have big radiators to counteract all of this. Hope that helps. Bud
don,t think anyone mentioned it but just for giggles , make sure there is a thermostat in the engine. at road speed the water pump is really spinning and the water may be circulating too fAST BEFORE IT HAS TIME TO COOL DOWN.
Running shrouded fan and the radiator is shrouded all around also. Just ordered high flow water pump, advanced the timing a skotch (no timing marks on the truck) and installed a 160 thermostat. That's it, the pump should be here in a day or two, throw it back together and play with the timing.......nothing else to do but sell it. Oh yeah, I'm changing out the heat gauge just for good measure (it probably was the gauge all along )
jayD Fords are noted for out of time to Run Hot! if No timming Marks on the Engine go thru the Basics & find top Dead center to set the Timming or use a Vacumm Gauge to set it up Just my 3.5 cents
Definately check the gauge, mine was showing 220+ when I installed a different engine in my truck, hooked a mechanical up to it and it shows 190 all day long... Sometimes its good to pull the radiator cap and sit the wifes turkey thermometer in there just to double check
Scrap those electric fans and run a stock mechanical fan and space it no farther away from the radiator than 3/4"....then put a shroud around the fan being sure that it fits as close to stock as possible...plumb your vacuum advance to manifold vacuum....then use a 180 degree thermostat w 50/50 antifreeze and water mix...top it off with a 14-16# pressure cap and it should be good....rear axle ratio should not make any difference in engine temps if everything else is up to the task.
+ wrong!!! distributor advance is ported vac. the second you load the engine manifold vac. falls off .... retards timing!
One other thing to check that I don't think anybody mentioned would be the head gaskets. Do a Leak-Down test or check the coolant for combustion gases. A bad head gasket can very easily produce overheating.
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