I could check this again in my driveway. It was 130 over ambient and rising in my original post.



$50 eBay reversible 16", curved blade. I had to flip the blades and reverse the polarity of the motor. No way this is 3000 cfm, but it does draw some heavy current! About half the price of the equivalent from fanman. We'll see how long it lasts... if it fries, replacement is a simple bolt in (after pulling the grille... ugh)

What specific electric fan are you running on the T-Bird?

HAs anyone put a shroud [or is one available] for the Fairlanes ? I have been thinking about this for mine . Ive done the basic mods and only gets hot sitting in slow traffic on a hot day. Thought a shroud would fix it.



"Came too close to dying to stop living now!"

I also have the bottom fan shroud that Steve mentions. It's a plastic one I ordered from one of the T-Bird suppliers. This is in addition to the CASCO modified water pump & the bypass hose restriction already mentioned. Don't know how much the shroud helped, as I have modified a lot of things to get the Bird to run cool (did the shroud, water pump, & bypass modification at the same time). But I can pull enough air through the radiator, & flow enough coolant apparently to idle as long as I please with no heat issues now. I also followed Steve's timing & manifold vacuum advance suggestions (very interesting reads on both ported & non-ported vacuum advance when searching old posts here). All I know is it runs much cooler, & no longer do I watch the temp gage peg regularly.

Brian - 56 T-Bird

Woodinville WA

Rob - The birds have half a shroud, top half of the radiator only - the bottom is open. so it doesn't perform as you would expect a shroud to behave. There are outfits that sell a bottom half to add-on and complete the cover, but I haven't tried one to report the difference in cooling performance.

Skygazer - Does your system give a stable temp without the aux. fan? If so, how high over ambient does it get?

 
 Steve Metzger       Tucson, Arizona

Yes, they all had shrouds from the factory. I think it is Ford Engineering's response to Design's need for an undersized radiator. The small radiator, combined with the small engine compartment, make little birds very hot-running in slow traffic.

It would have been good if the ornamental fender "hashmarks" were instead real fender vents! Tom Maruska made them functional in his pro-touring resto-rod, but that was a pretty involved mod!

By the way, 6 early birds joined the parade from my club. None boiled over, but two pegged their temp gauges and had to pull over and cool off after the parade. My car didn't need that!

Do the Tbirds have a shroud for the fan??



"Came too close to dying to stop living now!"

Here's an update... just took the t-bird on her first parade (details on my blog). Local temp 82°. Flushed the coolant system, replaced the thermostat with a new Mr. Gasket #4367. Made double sure that I put it in the right direction! Installed a 3/16 orifice in the bypass line. Filled with distilled water and Radiator Relief. Installed electric pusher fan. Here's a pic of the mechanical temp gauge at its highest:


That knob between the gauges is a pull switch for the electric fan.

Thanks for all the advice! I now have confidence to drive the t-bird in traffic on hot days.

You may want to look at brewing up in a different way. There is a lifetime coolant that uses no water and boils at 375 degrees. it is polypropylene glycol plus additives and goes by the name of Evans Waterless Coolant. It's not inexpensive but you only need to buy one filling.

Jay Leno uses it in all his liquid cooled cars and devotes two webisodes to this remarkable product.

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia