Reproduction Parts for 1916-1964 Chevrolet Passenger Cars & 1918-1987 Chevrolet & GMC Trucks


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Grease Monkey
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Hey Guys, I have a 1922 touring and I can NOT keep it running cool. It gets hot and boils over after 5-8 min of running...I have taken radiator out and had it flushed. Radiator dude said it had 78% flow. I thought that was pretty good. I have also put in an additional radiator (12"x 12"x 3") underneath car along with a 6 volt electric fan to attempt to help with cooling. No help. The additional radiator hose ( 1" hose) comes off from where water comes from the head of the block runs back to additional radiator. Then returns (1" hose) back to top of radiator where to original radiator hose would have connected. The water then runs through the original radiator and to the block. So water runs through both radiators. Would a bad seal on the head cause it to overheat? cracked head? I think the water pump is pumping well but maybe in need of a repair kit? I think it has good flow though. When it is running it sounds great so I don't think it's a timing thing? I have used the GUNK water pump lube also... Any thoughts or suggestions?

Also a few other questions. What oil do you guys use in the trans and rear end? Where can you buy new tires? 30 x 3 1/2 I looked at filling station but, couldn't see them listed.

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Grease Monkey
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Try putting an extra 2 fan blades on the radiator fan, the ”˜22-24 always had overheating until in ”˜26 chev introduced the 4 blade fan...

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Hi

The way you describe the overheating problem I cannot see any simple causes or solutions. I have some questions and thougts.

You write "after 5-8 min of running". Meaning 5-8 minutes driving, on the road? Or engine running, the car not moving?

I have never had problems with overheating when driving, but it has happened with the engine running (idling) and the car not moving. And after driving I always stop the engine immediately or almost immediately, because if I leave the engine idling the temperature rises quite quickly and coolant flows out.

You write "boils over". Meaning really boiling? Or just overflowing?

If I fill the radiator too much, that is more than approximately 75 mm from the top of the filling stud, some coolant flows out.

Have your car got the "under pan", the pressed sheet metal covering the whole area under the engine, between the side members? I have heard that the under pan has some impact on the cooling.

You write that you "think the water pump is pumping well". Fine, but could it be that the pump does not have enough capacity to circulate the coolant through two radiators? The pump rotor on my 1922 seems to do the job well, but I know that it is quite badly corroded.

My 1922 has a four blade fan. I guess that is standard.



Per-Åke Larsson
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Oil in the transmission and rear end: I use 250W singelgrade, mineral based transmission oil. The last seven or eight years Castrol SP 250. Before that Penrite Transoil 250. Both quite heavy, both producers say they are near the 600W Steam Cylinder Oil that was recommended in the 1920s.

I guess they are very similar to the "600-W Oil" that for instance Snyder´s offer for Ford models T and A.


Per-Åke Larsson
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Hey Swedechev,

Thanks for your reply your input is much appreciated. I have been running the car in a shop. I put a electric fan in front of the car/radiator that blows at 10-15 mph while the car is running. I would think that would be compared to driving but, to answer your question the car is not being driven when it boils over?...boil over means making steam and belching water out the overflow... Maybe I am overfilling radiator... You mentioned the filling stud. Where is that mark/stud? I generally fill radiator up till core is covered. But when i put the radiator cap on the temp gauge build inside of cap (thermometer) goes almost to the top. I do not have a under pan that I know of. The oil pan is open to ground. I also have a 4 blade fan. Other post mentioned adding another blade to fan??? 6 Blade? I have ordered the water pump repair kit. Maybe changing the fins of the pump will help with water circulation....

THANKS

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i have a 4 blade on the car now. Do they make a 6? think that would help?

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I am not aware of any 6-bladed fan. Remember that the fan takes considerable power to turn and adds more work for the engine. I would not put any other than a 2-bladed fan on a 490.


Agrin devil


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1925 Superior K Roadster
1928 Convertible, Sport, Cabriolet
1933 Eagle, Coupe
1941 Master Deluxe 5-Passenger Coupe
1950 Styleline Deluxe 4-Door Sedan
1950 Styleline Deluxe Convertible
2002 Pontiac, Montana, Passenger Van
2014 Impala, 4-Door Sedan, White Diamond, LTZ
2017 Silverado, Double Cab, Z71, 4X4, White, Standard Bed, LTZ

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Sounds to me that you may have a blockage in the head or block at the back near the rear freeze plug. Often if that area is not cleaned out correctly it will stop the flow of coolant around the back of the two rear cylinders and cause it to overheat the engine. You may have to remove the head to clean correctly if the engine has not been apart for many years, as the two small holes that line up between the head to the engine block get reduced in size or blocked with scale. You can clean it out with a thick piece of welding rod and compressed air, but it is not as good as removing the head and cleaning.
Last thing you need is to boil the engine and crack the head.

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"Filling stud" - sorry, I used that word because I don't know what the correct term is. I ment the pipe on the top of the radiator, with threads for the radiator cap. There is no mark. I did use a folding rule/yardstick for some time, after driving the car to normal temerature, and then after the engine was cold. I don't remember, but I guess the 75 mm that I mentioned means say 200-300 millilitres.

In the Parts List issued 1924 there are only four-blade fans, no two-blade.


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I just scanned the parts book and you are correct. 4-bladed fan, but no 6-bladed.


Agrin devil


RAY


Chevradioman
http://www.vccacolumbiariverregion.org/



1925 Superior K Roadster
1928 Convertible, Sport, Cabriolet
1933 Eagle, Coupe
1941 Master Deluxe 5-Passenger Coupe
1950 Styleline Deluxe 4-Door Sedan
1950 Styleline Deluxe Convertible
2002 Pontiac, Montana, Passenger Van
2014 Impala, 4-Door Sedan, White Diamond, LTZ
2017 Silverado, Double Cab, Z71, 4X4, White, Standard Bed, LTZ

If you need a shoulder to cry on, pull off to the side of the road.
Death is the number 1 killer in the world.


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There is one other thing that you can check in the radiator. If the top inlet pipe has rusted away a bit and is not connected to the front of the top tank then the water is not distributed all the way across the top of the core meaning that the sides don't really cool and the bulk of the water goes down the middle which slows the flow and therefore make the water temperature boil quicker. Just check by looking in the filler at the top to see that the top inlet pipe is conected to the front of the top tank. BTW the top of the inlet pipe is about the level of where to fill the radiator with water. Twin4

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Re 30 x 3 1/2 tires, all Model T parts suppliers carry them. Google 30 x 3 1/2 tire, there will be many hits. Most all the tires are made in Vet Nam with a few exceptions. Ether the Universal's or Riversides seem to be the best bets.

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I bought 4 new tires for my 1916 490 at the local antique Ford store and they were made in Vietnam. They are Universal tires


1932 4 door Special Sedan 1916 490 Touring
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1922 TOUR...........you need to systematically attack the overheating problem.

Start with a compression test on each cylinder, followed by a reading of the plugs. Pure white plug means water is cleaning the surface.

To determine if the cylinder head is cracked or the head gasket is leaking , look into the top of the radiator and look for air bubbles produced from a leaking head gasket.

Another source could be faulty head bolts or studs incorrectly torqued. Over torqued cylinder head bolts are a prime source of weakness , in that the bolts become stretched and cannot produce the clamping power needed. They should be replaced with new.

The water pump packing can be a further source of air leakage into the water system.

You cannot just add another fan blade to an existing fan. Obviously because Chevrolet came out with a 4 blade fan on the same motor 2 years later, there was determined to be a problem.

Cooling is a massive problem, that might mean taking the cylinder head off, checking the top of the block for straightness with a straight edge. Taking it to a machine shop to be zyglo for head or block cracks, replacing the head bolts /studs with new. Installing a new cylinder head gasket.

May also mean a recore of your radiator. Can get expensive and if done right and not mickey moused you will have happy motoring.

mike lynch "the real & original madmike3434 " hood

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Thanks Mike for all the suggestions. A few questions for you and all of the others also...

First what should the cylinder bolts be torqued to?

Second is there a way to clean the radiator without recoring? I have heard of putting Lye. Has anyone ever used it? or any other suggestions?

I did take the head off and have it at the machine shop. I could not quite tell if there was a leak looking at the old one. The holes where the water enters the head were a bit narrowed. The ones in the front of the block were about the size of a pencil. The ones is the back were about twice that size. Are the all suppose to be the same size or larger in back? ( back is by firewall) The head is getting worked over. I have ordered a new head gasket (copper) and will put it on when going back together. When putting it back together should I put any high temp silicone on the gasket to help get a good seal? or would that be a bad Idea? I will be putting in new valves in intake and exhaust. also I guess the exhaust side needed to be sleeved or repaired somehow and the machine shop will fix that also. Machine shop is grinding in the new valves in for me. New springs and keepers also.

Anything else I should have done while the head is off?

I will file the block to make sure it is level before putting the head back on. What is the best way to go about getting that done?

Thanks for all the input and help. It is much appreciated!!!

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Originally Posted by 1922tour
Thanks Mike for all the suggestions. A few questions for you and all of the others also...

First what should the cylinder bolts be torqued to?

Second is there a way to clean the radiator without recoring? I have heard of putting Lye. Has anyone ever used it? or any other suggestions?

I did take the head off and have it at the machine shop. I could not quite tell if there was a leak looking at the old one. The holes where the water enters the head were a bit narrowed. The ones in the front of the block were about the size of a pencil. The ones is the back were about twice that size. Are the all suppose to be the same size or larger in back? ( back is by firewall) The head is getting worked over. I have ordered a new head gasket (copper) and will put it on when going back together. When putting it back together should I put any high temp silicone on the gasket to help get a good seal? or would that be a bad Idea? I will be putting in new valves in intake and exhaust. also I guess the exhaust side needed to be sleeved or repaired somehow and the machine shop will fix that also. Machine shop is grinding in the new valves in for me. New springs and keepers also.

Anything else I should have done while the head is off?

I will file the block to make sure it is level before putting the head back on. What is the best way to go about getting that done?

Thanks for all the input and help. It is much appreciated!!!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Unfortunately I do not know what the torque numbers are on the head bolts of these cars, but somebody else like the technical advisor should know if you ask him.
Take the bolts to the machine shop and have them examine the bolts for stretch. Stretched bolts do not have the clamping power they were designed for. Lets say the torque is supposed to be 50 foot pounds and somewhere along the line a cylinder head leak was discovered. The first thing people do is to grab a 15" power bar with socket and tighten all the bolts around the cylinder beyond the factory recommended torque. Once the bolt/bolts are stretched to a much higher torque setting they cannot be reused.

Take a straight edge and place it on the surface of the block corner to corner and run feeler gauges underneath to see if the top of the block is straight. Max runnout is 15 thou end to end. The new cylinder head gasket can only fill so much gap.

Use a product called K&W COPPER COAT in a can and brush it on both sides. It helps to fill tiny imperfections scratches that water can follow. NEVER put any kind of silicon on a head gasket. That will get you entry into the mickey moused it club of really dumb stuff.

There is a pattern to follow when torqueing the cylinder head down. Its basically a spiral pattern starting at the center and moving across the head in 10 pound increments. Talk to your machine shop and ask them for their recommendations.

Your going to take a file and run it across the block surface, simple answer NO. Doesn't take much to screw things up. The top of the block should be clamped down on a re-surfacer machine & run over the surface to make it perfectly straight.

Water holes sizes, don't have a chev 4 cylinder so cannot say, hopefully others reading this section will chirp in .

The radiator should be taken to a professional rad shop that still does recoring. Besides flow thru the radiator core on a flow test they can also advise you on the fins. Its important that the core tubes have the fins tight against them to draw the heat out of the radiator. Somebody mentioned they had a 4 blade 4, that is a big improvement over 2 blade. Any time you see the same motor and certain things are upgraded, theres a reason the engineers changed it.

mike lynch " the real & original madmike3434 " hood

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Hey Guys,
First an update on my work that I have completed since the last post. I took the head to a machine shop. Had the bottom decked , new valves places and ground, new seats and guides placed and the guy attempted to weld the small crack on the the top of the head. He also put JB weld over the top of his weld for extra support. I took the radiator to a shop where they were able to clean out rust and flush all kinds of junk out. I also got a water pump rebuild kit finally from filling station and got it installed. I cleaned out water jackets from block to head to make sure I was going to have good water flow and blew out head and block with air to get all rust out. I got head back I installed it using the K&k copper coating. Went together really nice. I found that Chevrolet back in the day had a recommendation for torque on bolts depending upon size. The head bolt recommendation was 67 lb.


Now a few problems....

When filling the block with water the head started to leak water before I started the car so the weld repair by the machine dude did not work. Figuring that the head is prob shot. I am thinking that I need to get another head. I did buy one before when this one started to leak so I would have a backup but, the machine shop dude said that the one I bought had a bunch of spiderweb cracks next to the exhaust port and he did not think it was fixable. So wasted money on that head. I am looking for another head but, was wondering what year did they change the heads from single exhaust to the duel exhaust ports? I have read that the single exhaust port was terrible for getting hot and was easily cracked. The duel exhaust port was much better as I understand.

Would a later year duel exhaust port head fit on my 1922 block?

If so what years???

Since the head was leaking water I thought I would start car and see if I could put some stop leak in to seal the crack. Car started and ran well for a few minutes but, got hot just like it has been doing since I have owned the car. Thinking it was a cracked block. I decided to take the top radiator hose off to see what flow of water was running through the car. I took off the radiator hose so it was still hooked to the head of the car just not returning back to radiator. I had a bucket of water that kept the radiator full so it did not run out of water. SO when the car was at idle there was NO water coming out the hose on the top of the Head. When I would rev up the motor the water would come out but, nothing at idle????

WHY??? New water pump rebuild kit. I took it all back apart again to see if I screwed it up putting it together... nothing really to screw up though. All bolts tight. Silicone on both sides of gasket. radiator belt was tight. shaft was turning....bolt was in the groove on fan and nut was set so it would not get loose or spin. Filled radiator before slowly so all air would get out and no air pockets.


Any thoughts of why no water at idle? prob why its getting hot and cracked my head the first time??

Any thoughts on how to fix no water flow at idle? when rev up motor water flows like old faithful.


I am thinking of adding a in line radiator pump from summit racing just to see if it helps circulate water. something that would pump 20 gpm or so. Above I mentioned that I added another radiator in rear of car and have it flowing from original radiator to added one then to motor then back . When the no water was coming out the radiator hose from head all the hoses were hooked back to original design not going through added radiator in rear of car.




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Howdy,

The only year that had the two exhaust ports was 1928, the last year of the 4 cylinder engines. And yes, it will bolt onto the top of your block. The new head gaskets that various vendors sell fit from 1916-1928.

I suspect the push rods will be a different length than what you have now, so that will need to be addressed.

The only thing I can think of regarding the water not flowing during idle is a problem with the baffle plate in the water pump. FYI, I recently rebuilt the water pump for a '28 engine. Here is the description and pictures of that rebuild: Rebuilding Lurch's water pump

BTW, I had a water leak in the head of my other truck, Justin (1928 AB Canopy Express). The head had a small crack near the thermostat housing at the front of the head. I opened the crack up some with a dremel and filled it with JB Weld. That slowed the leak tremendously, but didn't stop it. So, I added some Bars Leak to the radiator fluid and that stopped the leak.

Hope this helps. Dean


Dean 'Rustoholic' Meltz
old and ugly is beautiful!




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