Allright, Yet another dumb question from a dude who is learning as he goes. I live in houston, texas and the heat down here in august is unbelievable. I've recently discovered that my water temp gauge gets really high in the afternoons, and it's only may. I was stuck in gridlock, not unusual, and the guage made a full revolution and peaked I was going to pull over to avoid overheating my baby but when I began to move it seemed to begin dropping a little. What can I do to control this? }>
What kind of radiator is in your truck? Do you have a fan shroud? with my V8 the stock radiator for a '66 GMC (for a 305 V-6) did the trick. I only put in the V6 radiator becuase the one I had originally leaked to bad to fix and the GMC radiator was the same size, just with a bigger tank on top. The fan shroud for the stock chevy, available from the host still fit and everything was fine. I recently changed this setup though because the GMC radiator was too tall to let the '61 chevy hood I put on close. I had no problem with the 62-66 hood which was originally on the truck interfering with the radiator though. The new radiator I put in was a 2-core all aluminum Griffin. It set me back about $200, cheaper than a stock replacement, and I had to fab my own brackets, but my truck runs cool in traffic all summer long, with no fan shroud!
I most certainly found this problem with my 61 stepside with a 350 in it. I put a new radiator in it and that seemed to help a lot. I know what your talking about with the heat, I live in Dallas, Tx!! I also found that if you have room to fit an electric fan in there that helps as well. It helps if you have the fans turning the same way though!!!
[updated:LAST EDITED ON May-07-04 AT 01:02 AM (CST)]I had the same type of cooling problems in my 64 every time I pulled into a line at a drive up. By the time I got to the window it was getting on the dangerious end of HOT ! Start by eliminating problems from the cheapest to the most expensive. Start with flushing the system and replace the thermostat. Hoses, upper and lower. Replace them. When hoses get old they break down and tend to collapse blocking cooling from flowing. Water Pump. Replace it. My water pump felt fine. No play in it at all. Went to Auto Zone and picked up a rebuilt, life time warrentied for $20. THAT got the cooling downd to where it should be. The water pump bearings were fine, the impeller inside was rotted and not flowing the amount of coolant needed when at stop or parade speeds. But just to be positive I added a fan shroud that I got from our hosts here at ChevyDuty. NOW, it has trouble hitting 190 on the hottest of Sacramento Valley sizzlers. If after all that you are still having cooling problems, THEN look at replacing the radiator. The radiator should be last on the list. Dennis
The radiator is only two years old and a pretty damn high quality one at that. I checked my hoses and they seem to be in good conditions but I guess those are cheap to replace anyway. I hadn't checked the water pump though, that will most likely be what I'll investigate today... Thanks fellas, Fu
I'll bet it's the water pump. I just got done, last weekend, with putting in a new HO 350 crate motor and 700 R4. The radiator was also new. I've been test driving with short trips all week and I still had not put the fan shroud back in. The temps ran consistantly at 200 degrees. Yesterday I installed the shroud and after that test drive the temps stayed consistantly at 190. That was after idling in the drive way for 20 minutes, hitting the freeway and then stop and go surface streets. If you don't have a shroud, I'd recommend getting one from our hosts here. 10 degree difference is significant and puts the small block at the correct running temp. Dennis
