Overheating SBC in 54 Chevy

1.5 vs. 1.75 but the convoluted hose will cause turbulent flow which makes it even worse. You need laminar flow on the inlet of a pump, especially a centrifugal pump. Otherwise you make a lot of bubbles. The larger hose has over 35% more area in cross section. At least that's my theory.

It ain't proven yet but it looked good. We' ll see.

 

Seriously dude pics

 

Make sure that 3/4 of you fan is out of the shroud. If it is all the way in or all the way out it will not cool right. My 47 Ford did the same thing until I put a Cooling Components fan/shroud assembly on. If you have 2 5/8" between the radiator and the water pump pulley then this would be a good upgrade.

 

I did post pics.........and I didn't change but one thing, so far.

Here are pics of the lower hose that was on the car.

 

Good job on the fix - this would have been a tough nut to crack for any of us.

I've never been a fan of those 'fit all applications convoluted' rad hoses. I'm actually using '55 chevy lower rad - and C3 corvette upper hoses (that I cut to fit) on mine. I looked at those convoluted/corrugated hoses, and I found them to be too expensive for my tastes. The tri-five lower hose fit perfectly into the stock rad location.

 

I have no idea what my hose goes to. I just went into the back of O'reilly's and picked one out.

 

You do realize that this happens in a non pressurized system. Most hoses do not have the "spring"support in them these days. A pressurized system will keep the hose "supported". The job of the pump then becomes to create pressure drop and, thus, flow in the system.

If the system has a 10 pound pressure cap, for example, the pump inlet can drop to 9 psi and create flow. The hoses are still under pressure internally and won't collapse.

 

Try this trick out to make selecting a hose simple. Take a piece of wire and bend it to the shape of the hose you need in the actual space its going. Center the wire at both ends and cut to length allowing for a little extra to cut-to-fit. Note the diameters at both ends and mark their size/location on the wire with a piece of tape. Take that "wire template" to the auto parts store and match. Buy a few that are close, match the best one on your car, then return the others for refund. Good luck.

 

I can see that trick working for other applications..... Especially for a couple of projects I am doing in my backyard workshop shop. I will be upgrading the roll bar in the Opel to a full cage and also redoing the headers from block huggers to a full length version and exhaust.

It is always a GOOD THING to keep the car out of the shop for work that can be done at home. Both from a standpoint of being able to say "look I did this at home" and even more importantly, especially for the hot rodder on a budget "Man I saved a LOT of $$$".


Thanks for the "tip" !!!!!!

 

It was 90 this afternoon. I drove around for about 15 minutes and it never got above 190. I then let it idle for 10 minutes and it never got over 200. I may have this thing whipped. I am going to try one more thermostat in it to see if I can get it a little lower.

Before, it would have been puking all over the ground before 10 minutes.

Here is the lesson learned. If you want to put shiny hoses on your car, just do the top one. Do not restrict the inlet to your water pump!

 

GLAD TO HEAR YOU ARE MAKING PROGRESS!!!!!

Thanks for the tip..... makes sense. The current "heat wave" we are having on the east coast will make for a good "testing ground" for your cooling system.

Now that I am redoing the entire cooling system on the Opel (for starters) I plan to take all of have read here and apply it to my built.

When my Opel would over heat it would be OK (190) until extended stop & go traffic and especially when crawling in bumper to bumper traffic.

The temps would climb to 260 and at times close to 300 degrees. Once I got moving for awhile the temps would go back down to 250 but never much lower than that.

What is weird it that it would not boil over. But let me tell you when I would finally park the car the you could fry eggs inside anything in engine compartment.

So it was with great pleasure I went at the Opel's cooling system with my sawzall!!!!

 

If a radiator is clogged it will usually be OK at idle & overheat the faster you go.
JimV

 

Here's another little coolant trick I came across years ago doing a V8 conversion on my 88 S-10 Blazer. Install a Heater Hose Restrictor. The theory is to slow down the coolant for it to spend more time in the radiator so more air can travel across its fins/tubes and be cooled. Here's a pic and link, http://www.jagsthatrun.com/Pages/Parts_Cooling_HH-splicers.html

 

The heater hose restrictor actually increases the water passing thru the radiator.

" The 5/8" heater hose splicer on the left functions as a heater hose restrictor, which is often necessary to insure proper cooling by forcing more coolant through the radiator, instead of going through the heater core."

Some good information here
http://www.arrowheadradiator.com/14...apability_in_high-performance_automobiles.htm

If your over heating then to much flow is never the cause. if the engine runs too cool then yes restricting the flow could help.

 

Loppy, the more time the water spends cooling in the radiator means thats more time its spending in the Block getting hotter!
JimV

 

I've seen a problem when natural gas flex line that looks like that is used instead of pipe. The turbulence really restricts flow.

 

Look at Belchfire 8 post 18 &27.Look at T Mans post 27 this works.Had friend with same problem replaced water pump made shroud used bypass hoses on intake, vented thermostat,big $ rad.nothing worked.Read post tman sugested call friend he to shop changed vacuum line to manifold vacuum overheating problem was gone.Cheapest thing we did cured overheating.In 38 chevy with 400 sb.Jimmie King

 

. It got hot this week and my car still overheated. It is definitely better with the larger hoses but it overheats while idling regardless of the vacuum connection to the advance. It is running around 190-200 at speed with AC and a 180 thermostat. (I tried two different ones with the same result.

This tells me the radiator is just marginal. I could put a fan on it that was more aggressive but I think I would still be just barely getting by. Guess I am going to have to spring for an aluminum radiator.

 

Go back and read C9's timing Bible I reposted in the thread.

 

You might try reading this http://www.stewartcomponents.com/Tech_Tips.htm

 

Copper has twice the conductivity and a much better heat transfer than aluminum.

 

Go to the junkyard and pick up a stock fan and see how it does before spending any more money,if another fan dopes not fix the problem then look into a better radiator.

 

Yes, but todays brazed plate aluminum coolers are much more efficient than he fin and tube designs of yesterday.

 

God, that was painful. Ok, I'll try the timing thing one more time but I'll bet it doesn't matter.

 

Thanks. I think I've considered all of this. I have a high perf. water pump. I've tried multiple thermostats, replumbed the system with full size hoses, tuned the engine, checked the cap, etc. etc.

It's possible if I got a really robust fan that I might get by.

 

there is alot of great advice on here!! more than i could have explained.. ill tell you about a problem i had with a 350 once.. the intake gasket went bad and would drip and burn the water through the # 8 cyl it would take a month to loose enough water to notice.. well i replaced the gasket and i was overheating the next day again!! so what i did was(of course after the thing was cool)pump the lower hose with my hand with the radiator cap off.. it pushed roughly half a gallon of water into the engine and the air out.. did the same thing to fix a jeep cherokee's heat issues.. just gonna chime in on my experience.. and good luck!! theres no other fear like sitting in traffic with youre eyes burning through the temp gauge praying for traffic to GOOO!!

 

What about the pulleys?

 

Or so they claim. They have those expensive aluminum radiators in lots of heavy equipment these days and it's almost impossible to keep them cool. I had a copper radiator built for under $2,000 to replace an $8,000 aluminum one and it cured their cooling problem. If you're trying to keep weight down, aluminum is the way to go.

 

Roughly 1:1. I haven't measured them but it is not an under drive setup.

 

Look at the pulleys on late model car,crank pulley is much larger.Howard Stewart talks about overdriving the water pump.