Joined: Tue Oct 16 2012, 12:15PM
Location: calgary
Posts: 1269
some good info there..had set up electric fan and waterpump in my 91 project..belive waterpump was issue and wasn't reliable enough for me so ripped it all out and put eldelbrock waterpump back on along with clutch fan and shroud..not one prob with heating now imagine pump issues ran along lines mentioned above...some things are best left alone lm learnin..bottom line .. reliability not a fan of rubber hoses or worm clamps..like joe says they look ugly and unrefined
on that imput line into tranny..would it be possible to have that outlet enlarged durrin a rebuild to fit a larger line and fitting? or is flow preasure part of valve system?
Joined: Tue Oct 11 2005, 01:33AM
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Posts: 5893
Gear clamps are designed for constant temperature applications, if used in a car cooling system, what doesn't leak when hot, will leak when cold. If you get it good and tight when cold, the hose starts to extrude throught the clamp gear holes when everything is hot. The best clamps are the constant tension spring Corbin clamps that Ma Mopar used for years.
I decided against the cooler line routing I had first used because there was just too much stuff in the way; battery tray, lower radiator hose, oil filter. When the thermostat arrived, I switched everything around and went the other way towards the passenger side--nothing in the way there. I used size 16 (9/16 to 5/8) fuel injection hose clamps that don't tear up the hose like the screw kind do.
I'll finish up the last two lines this weekend and get the boat on the road!
Joined: Tue Oct 11 2005, 01:33AM
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Posts: 5893
Looking good! Get much more stuff in there you'll need air ducts to get air through to the rad!
It's interesting how things go around. Those fancy fuel injector hose clamps look exactly like the garden hose clamps we used years ago before gear clamps appeared. They were a bear on a garden hose, the water rusted the screws so you couldn't tighten or loosen them and when using the hose with wet hands you always seem to draw blood on the sharp edges. When gear clamps arrived, the old type hit the land fill very quickly. Crazy world.
Finally finished!. There was a 1" hole in the firewall that was perfect for running one of the hoses, so all I had to do was drill another. Easy right? That turned out to be the toughest part of the whole job! I burnt up 1 drill (a 40 yr old Skill that was on its way out anyway) and two hole saws. I used some fancy (can you say $20 each) compression fittings because I didn't trust just tightening up the hose on the steel line with a clamp-once you put the hose on the barbed end it will not come loose, you have to cut it off.
I took the beast out and literally beat the dickens out of it: I did fifteen 0-100mph runs on a 93 degree day and went through a 1/3 tank of gas, but what fun!!! The water temp never budged above 190F, so all in all I'm very happy with the Champion radiator and trans cooler/thermostat---My only regret is that I waited so long to ditch the old school copper/brass radiator....
I also did a bit of work on my Charger: installed a Mopar Cold Air Intake Thursday night (took all of 40 min)--when driven sanely my fuel mileage went up 1.5mpg, but it is hard to keep my foot out of it because of the glorious noise it makes under full throttle! And it's almost as fast as the newport now.