The gauge is electric and it's new and a new matching sending unite. I did check the temp with a thermal temp gun and the the readings i am getting on the intake near the sending unite is very close (Slightly less) to what the gauge is showing. I would think the outside of the intake will be slightly less that what the sender is picking up from the coolant.
Car runs down the road is OK car sits still heats up put your shop fan in front of the radiator if heating goes away its air flow you can forget the other stuff if not forget the air flow.. As to fan to shroud position a large amount of air comes off the ends of the fan blade if you put that part of the fan inside of the shroud you just recirculate that air
Whether you believe it or not the gasoline blend today contributes way more than anything else we can “fix”. If your engine is fine when moving and starts heading up when intersections come along and can’t recover ….. your water pump is not moving enough coolant and a larger pulley on the crank or smaller on the water pump will fix the problem. I’ve gone to a 6 blade fixed steel fan which probably costs mileage and noise but I don’t care if the engine stays at a livable temp. I like the fan centered in the shroud or slight in to grab more air and try to center the fan with 3/8” clearance. My car never had a shroud when new and only had a 4 blade fan. They never ever over heated when my parents own them. The engine still has the same compression as it was made. The radiator is better and bigger than new. The faster water pump fixed it all.
Hell of a time to bring this up, but doesn't a company called Snow White make water pump risers for small block Fords? And it seems like I read somewhere that Vintage Air had 'em, too, but that might be hot air itself.
So you just let the poor car sit and idle in the driveway for 5 to 10 minutes so it would hit 230? Shows that air flow is the sum total of your cooling problem and maybe the nut behind the wheel is part of the issue. Tiny fan not moving enough air is the issue. As mentioned by Sunbeam, the fan has to be in the right spot in the shroud opening to work right. Too far forward or back in the opening and it won't move enough air. Other than that a modern V8 is going to run at the temp it wants to run at no matter what body you stick it in, it is still a modern V8 and not a flathead or hot water six. That shit in your mess kit nonsense of MY new engine runs a lot hotter than what the flathead guys say their engines run at in the same style body is just that, nonsense. A lot of late V8 engines very comfortably run at 230 in the donor rigs they left the factory in but the gauge just shows "normal" Put that same engine in a Model A with a good radiator and it hits that same temp and it causes a 4 page what is wrong thread on the Hamb every time. Try one thing before you do anything else, Take a big cooling fan out of the house and set it in front of the radiator on high in the driveway and let that car idle for that five /ten minutes again. That should show you if there is any issue besides air flow going on.
None for Ford sb With the desire and fabrication skills a solution can be made,I would make a stand off , off water pump or heads , Run like model A if all other temps could not cure over heating @ idle ,, Yes ,lot of work/thought ,then just adding a electric fan ,
Here is what I think sumarizes the problem. When you are moving down the road air flow increases and the coolant pump turns faster. The engine also produces more hp at higher speeds so it is generating more heat because its completing more combustion cycles. The engine runs cool. When sitting and idling less heat cycles are completed and less heat should be generated.........BUT that isn't happening. The forced airflow has disappeared and the engine gets hotter. Either the slower speed of the water pump is not presenting enough water to the radiator for cooling because its bypassing internally, or the airflow produced by the fan assembly isn't sufficient to cool the water even though plenty of water is still being circulated and not bypassed. I would agree with the suggestion to supplement air flow when idling by placing a fan in front of the vehicle to see if the temp comes down some. If it has no effect, then I would look for a water circulation problem.
Almost all Fords high performance in the 60 before 68 had dual points without vacuum advance and early hemis.
In my experience 99.999% of cooling problems are air flow related. No need for water-side concerns as long as you have a good stock water pump. On my '36 Willys with a 354 hemi engine there is absolutely zero room for any type of puller fan. Also there is no room for a big radiator. I run a 40s re-cored Plymouth tall radiator with a pusher fan. It cools fine. Recently I have used Ford factory 2-speed electric fans from 90s cars (Mark viii, T-Birds) with great results. They move monster amounts of air, more than any aftermarket electric. And they can be placed anywhere behind the radiator. They fit perfectly inside a 1959 Chevy factory shroud too. Guaranteed you will need a winter coat the car will run so cool!!!!
One of those hand-held, temperature-reading, laser "guns" are handy for troubleshooting cooling issues. You can check the temp of the radiator/coolant corner to corner and around the inlet and compare that to the radiator around the outlet to determine if the temp drop is normal. You can measure temps all around the waterjacket of the block, looking for hot spots, cold spots, etc. If you have a pocket of air, perhaps in a hose, that can cause coolant exchange problems. You should be able to spot any anomalies.
when you first start it idling feel both heads , is one getting hot, the other one, NOT so much. Its possible the builder put both side of gaskets the same way. On small block Fords, head gaskets are so deceiving, one goes on one way , the other one the opposite , one copper up, one aluminum side up. check to see if coolant holes are aligned correctly Also, the water has to stay in the radiator for air to blow thru it ,long enuff for it to try to cool, the thermostat will determine when block insides get hot enuff to move water to the cooling place. If all things are correct 7 lb cap should suffice. .IMO
I must confess that I didn't read all 5 pages of the discussion. But from what I did read, I didn't see anyone mention to add a plate/baffle across the bottom and behind the radiator to help block the discharge air from the radiator fan from recirculating back to the front of the radiator when you are sitting still.
If it heats when sitting rather than driving in my experience it is either timing or airflow. On a similar setup with a small block Ford we made a shroud, used a stainless steel flex fan with a matching spacer to locate the fan. This system uses no pressure due to the tank size and does not run hot, less than 200 degrees, in traffic, in 100 degree weather.
I learned the main problem is the location of the mechanical fan , it's too low and too far from the radiator. No Mechanical fan would fix this issue. When i rebuilt this car i assumed the cooling would work fine. This might be the reason it sat in a garage for over 40 years. I installed a 12" pusher fan made by Spal, they suggested a pusher style would work better because i am using a four row radiator. I noticed with the fan running some of the air was blowing back from the shroud so i removed the shroud. The car did great this weekend so far so good. I plan to change the thermostat to a high flow stat.
What is a good tempersture thermostat to use? I am using a 180 . The sending unit is 195 on and 185 off. I installed the sensor for the temperature gauge behind the thermostat and the sending unit for the fan is on the other side of the distributor. I am checking the surface temperature at both sensors with an infrared thermometer and they are always a little different . I don't know if it matters which location either sensor is in. I still have the mechanical fan.
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