A little cooling project (Operation: Cucumber)

[65er]

Since the subject of cooling and radiators has been a hot (heh) topic lately I figured I'd show what I was up to last week.

I allowed for some minor car surgery but no frame notching or other heavy duty stuff, and ordered up a nice Howe crossflow radiator as big as I could stuff in the car.  I think my original radiator is a tad smaller than just the core on my new one.  The new one is also a crossflow instead of a downflow, which is a good thing.




I also ordered a dual fan and shroud unit out of a 2000 Cougar, same as the popular Contour unit.  50 bucks shipped, lol.
And a pair of Derale adjustable fan controllers
I also rescued a couple pieces of aluminum sheet from the scrap bin



First thing was to cut away what I didn't need from the plastic shroud...



Next, model all the stuff I had and add what I needed to make it all work.  The rectangle pieces are hinged so ram air can blow through but the fans can't suck hot air from the engine compartment.



My rescued scrap metal so I actually had to break down a buy a piece for the shroud.  I cut my flat pattern out on the waterjet and got my buddy to bend it up for me.  Good fit! 



Then I made up the fan housing clamps and temperature probe adapter. I put the temp probes next to the thermostat since they are kind of working as s team...




Since I couldn't find a radiator that took up the whole space I had planned, I decided to draw some heat from the tanks as well as the core, and added heatsinks to help accomplish the job.



The foam rubber donut is on there to help keep air flowing the right way.  You just can't beat the damn waterjet for cutting foam rubber!!  I think the cycle time for this cut was about 10 seconds...



I'm liking the way this is going together.




After getting some stuff together I put on some paint to make it a little more OEM looking



And I wrapped all the wiring in black electrical tape. Not the fanciest thing for sure but beats the heck out of all those bright colored wires running around.



Finally got her stuffed in the car and mounted up.

 

The bottom radiator hose turned out to be quite a challenge.  I picked out a likely candidate from the wall at O'Reilly's but it wasn't so great!  Fortunately I was able to use a bit of the old and a bit of the new to get the job done.




Ended up kinda close but seems to be ok!  Got about 1/2" of clearance on the belt here.




I had to mess around with my temperature adjustments a bit but so far the unit seems to be working as intended.  Have been driving it around town and up and down the highway with the AC running and the temp stays right in the fan temperature cycle which I have set to kick on at 190 and it kicks back off at 180.  One thing I did find out is that it doesn't work so well with one fan running low temp and the other running higher.  I need to get a resistor just like the one I threw out with the cut up shroud (DAMN!), then I can wire it so both kick on slow at whatever temp I set, then they will go to high at the second temp. 

[mlcraven]

Great job!  Very tidy work.

[lovehamr]

Excellent work and pictorial! 

[KMcCullah]

Looks good! And adds a wide margin of additional cooling capacity for all that BP power.

Now.....how about some video Wade? Take us for a ride, bark the balonies maybe? Discover your next upgrade perhaps? 

[jayb]

Great job on that, Wade.  You should be cool as a cucumber with that setup...

[65er]

Cucumber! lol, thanks Jay.

When I did the rad/fan swap I also swapped out my original belt drive pulley for a March underdrive unit.  Unfortunately, it seems 5.5" is a bit TOO small.  Another chunk of aluminum rescued from the scrap bin and a few hours of quality time at the manual lathe and mill got me a nice 6.5 incher.  Seems just right, my voltage and power steering don't want to crap out at idle anymore. 

Here's a shot of the original, March, and Wade-made pulleys together...

[Lenz]

Great looking setup Wade-  I'm startin' to think that I'd like to have your scrap pile let alone the tools you're using to get the job done.  Plug in the skills needed and that's how hot-rodding's done .

[BruceS]

I'll take Wade-made anytime!  Good bit of engineering as well as fab work. How did you hear about the Contour fan setup?

Bruce

[machoneman]

Nice workmanship indeed! Hey, I'd like a few parts for my '70 Stang.....as if you aren't busy enough. LOL!

[65er]

Looks good! And adds a wide margin of additional cooling capacity for all that BP power.

Now.....how about some video Wade? Take us for a ride, bark the balonies maybe? Discover your next upgrade perhaps? 

I'm going to have to get a Go-Pro or something one of these days! Being on second shift, it seems any time I would have an opportunity to do some recreational driving I don't have anyone around to do the camera work for me.  That's why so far all the video I have is of the car idling, lol 

I'll take Wade-made anytime!  Good bit of engineering as well as fab work. How did you hear about the Contour fan setup?

Bruce

My habit is to read everything I can find before jumping into a project and during my research the Contour fan setup popped up as a favorite upgrade for a lot of folks.  I also liked the idea of the smaller dual fans vs a bigger single and the price was definitely right.  Was a bit of a project to adapt it but I live for projects like that     Funny thing is, now that I have it in there I'm thinking of changing it all up for the single Taurus fan.  Well, not thinking of it too seriously but the sound of the duals is kind of annoying.  Sounds like a swarm of bees under the hood.  Hopefully it will be a good bit quieter after I get it low/high speed set up working, I'm pretty sure it will rarely run hot enough to kick the fans on high.

[machoneman]

I've heard of the same issue (noise) yet I think you're right in that low speed operation will quiet them a lot. Funny, having a too-quiet exhaust system can't cover the droning sound in high speed. Maybe open up the exhaust to cover the fan roar....LOL!

[cjshaker]

Always impressed with your work, Wade. Nice job!

Have you checked the fit of that 6.5" pulley? I know the underdrive March set doesn't leave a lot of room between pulleys, or were you switching/making the water pump pulley as well?

[65er]

Always impressed with your work, Wade. Nice job!

Have you checked the fit of that 6.5" pulley? I know the underdrive March set doesn't leave a lot of room between pulleys, or were you switching/making the water pump pulley as well?

I didn't buy the pair from March, just the crankshaft pulley.  With their set, I'd be concerned that at idle in addition to being low on voltage and power steering pressure, I might also have insufficient flow at the water pump.  The original crankshaft pulley is 7.75" dia and the water pump pulley is 5.75. The March crank pulley is 2.25" undersized (for my car) at 5.5" and the water pump pulley they offer is an inch oversize at 6.75".  Talk about some serious reduction, that must be for 8000+ rpm FE's!   

I had other issues with the March pulley besides.  The finish is a clear powder coat and I felt like it was pretty slick for a friction surface.  Has plenty of black marks from the alternator belt skidding to back up my suspicions too.  And the fit on the crank damper was a little on the loose side I thought, with a couple thousandths of clearance and engaging again on the powder coating.  Mine being bare aluminum and a slight press fit seems to me like a bit of an improvement.   I installed my new pulley right after I took the pic., works like a champ so far 

[cjshaker]

I didn't buy the pair from March, just the crankshaft pulley.  With their set, I'd be concerned that at idle in addition to being low on voltage and power steering pressure, I might also have insufficient flow at the water pump.

Gotcha. Guess I just assumed you had the set. A lot of guys don't think about the underdrive set not being ideal for a street cruiser. Like you said, they are made for higher rpm applications.

That temp probe housing is really slick! If you had a CNC machine, you could easily market this stuff!

[65er]

Still no burnout vids!! Oh well, one of these days.  I did at least cruise out of town a bit on the highway, burned some rubber while I was out and also sat at some traffic lights on a decently hot day (98*) with the AC blasting and the temp gauge never got over about 190. It mostly hovers closer to the 180 mark.  I'm calling this project a success!