My car has a 5 blade fan that has a Ford part number on it. Not sure what it is off but it pulls lots of air at idle and my pump pulley is larger than the crank pulley. It has large flex blades with an enormous pitch that flatten at higher revs so less power robbing. Other than the fan all is original, no blocked bypass, copper and brass radiator, 180 thermostat. The only time I ever see the temp creep up is when stuck in traffic on 100F or higher days, but it has never boiled, and I'm sure a smaller pump pulley would probably cure that.
I recall on this sight a link from another car group that did exhaustive testing and came to the conclusion that stationary overheating if there are no mechanical problems was usually the result of not enough air flow.
From the original question, in my case the YBlock is the best of any car I've had to get to running temperature quickly.
I find easiest way to check bottom hose is just to squeeze it when cold and you can quickly feel if the wire is still all intact.

my 57ranchero has the original type rad(,cleaned ,180 stat original bypass hose unrestricted) stock pump pulley.temp guage is new location a the front of intake..i ran in heaven trafic all summer which was our hotest in years. no heating issues. i use anty freeze all year as anty freeze has better heat exchange than water. myn is 292/ 040 bore with 4v,and std trans.  years ago a buddy had a 55 272 fordamatic,in traffic he always shifted to n that unloaded engine and helped cool trans(air cooled torqe.)
 must admit that those in ca in the summer with traffic are in a different world than i am.

We bought a "Champion" radiator for our 56 Ranch Wagon and are pretty happy with it. Dimensionally, it fit perfectly. If you are running an automatic though, be prepared to bend your transmission cooling lines a bit because the bottom tank on the radiator is configured a little differently than stock which changes the angle of the fittings on the bottom tank. Trying to bend the steel lines to make them fit is kind of a PAIN!

Rono

  Ron Lane,  Meridian, ID

PM sent.

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.

Hey I found this one.. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1954-1955-1956-FORD-SUNLINER-CUSTOMLINE-MAINLINE-CRESTLINE-VICTORIA-RADIATOR-/291531588311?fits=Year%3A1955%7CMake%3AFord%7CModel%3AFairlane%7CSubmodel%3ABase%7CEngine+-+Liter_Display%3A4.4L&hash=item43e0a302d7:g:UKwAAOSwp5JWaZJI&vxp=mtr

It's not completely original looking but at least it's stamped metal and similar looking. I suppose it could also be painted black if it really bugged me enough. What do you guys think? Do you think it'd do the job? Is that a good brand?

Yeah yeah I know. : / That's the big decision. Be totally original and keep your drives short, or get an actual working system and be able to drive as far as you want.. that is unless you wanna shell out $500 dollars for a US Radiator that looks stock..

I guess even the cheapest modern radiator has to work better then and old 50s radiator that's probably kinda dirty inside.. maybe.. maybe the best course of action would be to get a cheapo radiator like that one in the pic. $150/200 one, just to see if it even fixes the issue. Because as it sounds, the radiator may not even be my whole problem.. hate to spend $500 bucks then have the radiator not even end up being the problem. Hell that's why I backed out of getting on earlier, because I thought I'd figured out the overheating was actually being caused by the exhaust valve not opening. Which WAS adding to the problem, but keeping it open didn't totally fix the problem.. just postponed it.

I agree, they aren't very nice visually. I ended up putting one in my 57, I'd rather be able to drive my car then sitting on the side of the road looking pretty. I took a chance and bought one, it isn't chrome its aluminum. I don't put a lot of miles on mine, just hit 8000 after three years and no problems.

I came incredibly close to getting a new radiator when my old one was off the car. Like so close that I'd won one in an Ebay auction and barely managed to back out of it at the last minute. : \ I would have NO problem upgrading my radiator to a more modern design, just as long as it looked original. But every radiator I seem to find is this chromed out, weld-mark visable ugly looking eye sore! I mean just look at this thing, YUCK

Told me of that fix. Ted came in later and said how any different water pulleys there were because of different climates. For me I'm happy with the smaller pulley and glad I don't run the 6 blade noisy fan any more. I also put a plug in the bypass and then drilled a 1/8" hole in it. Perhaps that's the origami problem here. That bypass with no plug and a 180 * thermostat could help with heating up quicker which is what started this topic...

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.

My overheating problem was well documented here. It was a water movement at idle that was my problem and I had the best ultra cool radiator from US Radiator. Since my car was 99% in town and high traffic of So Cal I needed a fix and Green Birds here

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.