nailhead cooling issues

[bigirish2]

Once you get your new radiator make sure you have the 7 blade fan and the right fan clutch. Best that I have found so far is the fan clutch for an early 80's Estate Wagon with a 455 and then get the extreme duty version.
Mike S

[al812]

One thing I have found out with mine is that it runs best between 190 & 210.How many blades are on your fan? You'll need at least 6 blades or it will not pull enough air through to cool it,also I had to go from a 2 core to a 3 and finally to a 4 core to keep it where I felt was a good temp.It stayed around 185 when I did that,in one of the post someone said something about to little or to much air fuel mixture that makes a world of difference.Something else to concider as goofy as i may sound is your oil pressure up where it needs to be? For some reason when you have a fualty oil pump or not enough pressure it will run on the warm side.Personally I would've put the sensor on the lower side close to the hose outlet.Something else to take into thought is how hot is the weather there? The road heat could be playing with you a bit also,was or is there a lower air dam? Some require a good one for proper air flow if it's broke or missing then I would replace or fix it.It's next to impossible to place the thermostat in upside down,even though I've done it once(it broke the neck).Msd has a habit of making things run from about 6-10 degrees hotter for some reason-you sure you are'nt off a tooth on the dis. when it was dropped in? Just a few things more to think about, have you checked for an intake or exhaust gasket possibly starting to go out? good luck

[mottrodder]

A lot of good, practical information has been posted on this thread. After reviewing them, I can only think of one addtional item to check/do that hasen't been specifically mentioned: Does your Riv have a "catch can" or a true coolant recovery system? A coolant recovery system, I have read, can increase cooling capacity by 20 percent. (A coolant recovery system has the overflow enter the container through at the bottom so the coolant can be sucked back into the radiator as the system cools down after driving.) After making sure you have one, or installing a recovery system, I would suggest you run a thermostat, install a 50 percent antifreeze mixture and a container of water wetter and see how it runs. Check the level of coolant in the recovery container after the first three to five "driving cycles,"and add coolant if necessary to fill the space left from air in the system. If you have to add coolant it means you had air pockets and you are solving this problem with the addition of more coolant. After all that has been done, at this point I would think water wetter would be a legitimate fix and not a band aid measure. Good luck.

[sicksteve]

Hey............water does not have the best cooling qualities by itself, that is why antifreeze/antiboil is usedBob

NOT TRUE!!

Water has one of the highest Specific Heats (It takes I calorie to raise 1ml of H20 by 1 degree).That's a lot of energy. The only reason antifree is added is to lower the freezing point of water and to add lubricants for the water pump bearings, rusting, etc. This brings up another point: make sure you use dionized, distilled water. Regular tap water can have a lot of undissolved crap in it.

That's why a 50/50 mix is the maximum ratio advised.

I used too have overheating issues with my '70 Toronado GT (455 V-8 sitting on a THM-425 geneates a lot of heat!!) Even with monster-wide radiator, transmission cooler, electric fans, it would run about 190F in SB, CA. Later in the Desert, it over heated constantly.

The person who mentioned the radiator may be right. i had a guy in Santa Barbara handbuild a 4 -core radiator for my '63, bending each fin by hand!. After a thorough flush, a flex-fan, I never encountered any over heating.

my '73 and '76 have no problems, although that's a different area.