I tried all the tricks to keep my Pantera from overheating. I bled the system. I replaced the thermostat. I verified the system routing. I installed 2 1250CFM pusher fans on a 30 amp relay. I even used water wetter. I saw some improvement, but I still overheated in traffic, even though I'd get a steady 210 degree reading while at highway speed. Since my radiator was reportedly out of a '74 model, making it almost 30 years old, I thought a new radiator might be in order.
Note: Captions are on top of photo renditions
After some time with the NAPA guy, and the CarQuest guy, I assembled the parts I needed. Pipe dope, drain petcock, NPT plug (single thermostat models only), thermostat from a Jeep (CarQuest Temperature Sending Unit TS165), a hose with two 90 degree bends (NAPA 8919), and of course, the Fluidyne radiator from http://www.absoluteradiator.com.
Here's another shot of the radiator. You'll never see this script again... I hope.
Looking at the old radiator installed. The 90 degree elbows are pretty tight, but they don't have to be.
I took it out. This is how you can tell if you have a bad radiator: push one of the fins across the core. If it bends, the core is probably okay. If it snaps and slides across the core, you have fin separation. Heat is effectively trapped in the core and insulated from the fins under these conditions. That's what happend to my radiator. The core is junk.
Here's the back of the Radiator. It's still junk, but you can see it has two thermostats installed, as it should on a '74 model. The bottom one was unused.
Here's the radiators side by side. The old radiator is about twice as heavy as the aluminum one. I've cut the hose and installed the plugs and sensors.
Here the radiator sits with the pusher fans (Flex-a-Lite FLX-240) laid in front. I had to "persuade" the P-car a bit since the locating dowels on the bottom of the radiator were almost 3/4 of an inch too far apart. Otherwise, it dropped right in.
All finished! Now my fans turn off on occasion (never used to do that) and I don't overheat, even in heavy traffic. Hurrah for me!
