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Cooling System??????????

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Juan_Hong_Loe

That's dumb
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Aight. I got a question for you guys. I have been working on a truck for the last week or two trying to get it to run cool.

Specs: Chevy 1 ton CUCV frame and running gear, 454 with Howell fuel injection, TH400, NP205.

It has a griffin aluminum radiator that is 28" wide 20" tall. I just made a pimp ass fan shroud pepper.gif and put a Flex-a-lite typhoon electric fan on it. We also mounted it at the back of the truck, behind the cab with about 4"-5" of room on the front side of the radiator so I know it flowing enough air. Neal and I also ran aluminum tubing all the way to the motor to help with heat disipation. The truck is still running hot!!!!! >:( Like 235 hot. The thing will not get over 190 sitting still but when you drive the thing it gets up to 235 and will not come back down even if you let it just idle for a while (15 mins or so). After it gets this hot you can shut the truck down and let it sit for about 30 seconds and then crank it up and the temp drops 15-20 degrees in about 5-10 seconds. Shut it back off and climbs maybe 5 degrees. It takes about another 10 seconds for the air flowing through the radiator to get cool feeling. A lot cooler than right after shutting the truck off. Here's what I'm thinking and here are my questions for you guys.

1. It has a high flow water pump on it. Could this be the problem?

2. Could the fuel injection be the problem? Letting it run too lean?

The reason for question #2 is that when he had a carb. on it it would run hot but only like 215-220. After the fuel injection it got up to the 235 range. :dunno:

I don't know what else to do other than a bigger radiator. But like I said above the thing cools quick after the water sits in it for about 10-15 seconds with the truck off. :dunno:
 
Things to check
1. do you have enough water in the cooling system?
2. check your thermostat, it may be letting too much water pass through. The radiator would'nt be able to do it's job.
3. Make sure it's circulating water.
4. Check your timing.
5. Is the water flowing in the right direction.


My money is on #2.
 
rock mafia said:
Are you sure it does not have any air in it?
Click to expand...

No air. We cracked some of the hoses when we filled it up, then cranked it, Then tightened all the clamps again, continued to fill what little was left to be filled (maybe a quart).

InDaShop said:
are you sure the high flow pump is enough to push water through that system?
Click to expand...

I would think so. I am thinking that it might bee too much. flowing through the radiator too fast and its not letting it cool it before it gets through the other side. :dunno:

I talked with Fuel Injection Specialists this morning. They are out of San Antonio. As soon as I said it had a Howell kit the guy said, "Ohhhh!" I kinda paused and laughed a little and he then said that they don't do a lot with Howell because there diagnostics aren't that great. He told me about an O2 sensor that had a air fuel mixture read out on it or something. He is supposed to get me a price on it. If that is not too expensive I might try that route just to know that its not running too lean.

I'll get some pics tonite so you guys can see what I'm dealing with. Maybe seeing it you guys might be able to say "Naw you done it all wrong!" Or something like that. ;D
 
KidRock mentioned it, but could not hurt to elaborate. Has the water pump been replaced since it was running cool? Is there and way the water pump could be running backwards. There are left and right turning water pumps.
 
John Galbreath Jr. said:
KidRock mentioned it, but could not hurt to elaborate. Has the water pump been replaced since it was running cool? Is there and way the water pump could be running backwards. There are left and right turning water pumps.
Click to expand...

Seems to be running the correct way. Lower rad hose is cooler than top hose when it is running in normal temp range.

Here are some pics, and a video of the temp gauge when idling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smgMGmU8aR0







Here is the full album with more pics. http://good-times.webshots.com/album/563022630bSXmjF?vhost=good-times
 
This should take care of your problems.
http://www.rondavisradiators.com/offroad.htm :flipoff1:
 
From the pics looks like it does not have enough room between the cab to get good air flow plus half the air is hitting the fuel cell possibly causing this hot air to recirculate back around and thru radiator causing air to get hotter and hotter. This effect would tend to get worse riding down the road. I had a buddy put a v-8 in a Toyota with the same problemwhen he drove down the road. He could crawl all day in the woods and never overheat so he never worried about it. Just my $.02
 
ben's old S10 had the rad totally enclosed in the bed and it stayed cool enough. problem I had in the sheep with the EXACT setup was the tube diameter. In my truck before that, EXACT setup, I had 2.125" tubes. In the sheep I had 1.625 tubes. I couldn 't keep the sheep cool for ****, and couldn't get the old truck to warm up. It was 7.5 gallons in the system, though.
On the FI/too lean thing. take a digital thermo and shoot the header tubes. if its too lean they will be way too hot, white, or the plugs will be white. They will glow orange when ran hard for just a bit. That should rule out the lean/not lean thing.
I vote check header temps, then change thermostats, then check flow to see if its circulating properly.
 
in theory, this whole "keep it in the rad longer" thing works great. there are cases of this being the best bet. now, with all the ****ing surface area on those tubes, that rad and that shroud (instead of a fan zip tied to the rad) it shouldn't matter 1 ****ing bit. I've cooled more with less. If that rad were in the front, it would work. something else in your system is ****ing you. that said, tstat is easiest and it could be a faulty one, so change it stat
 
I took the thermostat out of the buggy. It was a 160, as low as I could go. Used to run 210, now 175. Thinking of a high flow thermostat from BeCool.
 
I test every single t-stat before I put them in. At one point on the '58 I went through 3 bad ones in a row from Oriellys and Napa.

Heat up some water on the stove top and drop a meat thermometer in there and then drop the t-stat in there. watch them temps climb and make sure the t-stat opens when it should. I have yet to have one that opened within 10 degrees of its rating.
 
InDaShop said:
I test every single t-stat before I put them in. At one point on the '58 I went through 3 bad ones in a row from Oriellys and Napa.

Heat up some water on the stove top and drop a meat thermometer in there and then drop the t-stat in there. watch them temps climb and make sure the t-stat opens when it should. I have yet to have one that opened within 10 degrees of its rating.
Click to expand...

Well that is just too easy. Nice trick.
 
John Galbreath Jr. said:
Well that is just too easy. Nice trick.
Click to expand...
I got tired of installing, troubleshooting, uninstalling, etc... You figure you got it fixed once you replace the t-stat. Then move on to figure it must be something else. When you make it back, to "no, it must be the t-stat", but "how can it be the t-stat, that thing is new" arguement its been 8+ hours or even a week. I learned my lesson on the '58. And how did I learn it, after the second t-stat I said fawk it and installed everything with out a thermostat and guess what my **** cooled. So then I knew the damn thing was never opening. IIRC it was a 190 degree one, and it never opened. We are talking brand new out of the box.

So to save time and hassle I always test.
 
I'm having the same trouble with the cad motor..runs around 225. I have been doing a lot of research, and one thing you might try that I have read alot of people with cad motors like mine is to drill 6 very small holes in the thermostat to let air and a tad bit of coolant to circulate. This keep the engine from developing hot spots and quite a few folks on the cadillac boards have claime that it dramatically helped their cooling problems. Not sure of the science behind this, but its a cheap thing to try. I am going to try it this weekend just to see if it helps..after that I am going to check a lean condition as well. Also you can sometimes bump up the fuel pressure a tad to accomodate for a lean condition on gm based throttle body injections....
 
I noticed this weekend that my truck was starting to heat up if I was revving in one spot. I thought I fixed my problems....I can drive down the road with no fans on and it will stay at 190ish......I have heard about drilling holes, maybe I still have air in there.

Brian
 

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