Well Duh!

[S2DSteve]

I just made an interesting discovery on my '53. I've been dealing with a nagging tendency to overheat ever since putting it on the road in '03-not real bad usually, but I had to be careful about situations that could tax the cooling system. Anyway, I just noticed the radiator cap was too short for the neck. The seal barely touched the bottom of the opening, so for all intents and purposes I've been running an unpressurized system. The cap I've been using is the 1" length (the one on the right) that is standard for virtually all modern radiators. The neck on this radiator is 1 1/4" deep. The highest pressure 1 1/4" cap I can find is 7 lbs. I ended up adding a 1/4" spacer so my 16 lb. cap would seal. Seems to be working fine now. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what car this tank is from (probably from a Hawk), but It might be worth checking out if you've noticed problems keeping coolant in your radiator.


Steve Hudson
The Dalles, Oregon
1949 "GMOBaker" 1-T Dually
1953 Commander Convertible
1954 Champion Coupe
1960 Hawk

[Guest]

Steve,
Congratulations on finding the problem without tearing things down or replacing parts one at a time. Not that I have ever done that. yeah, right.

[curt]

MY 1955 President had an added on coolant recovery system put on by PO. I also found PO had changer to a 195 degree thermostat. I replaced the cap and stat using original equipment. Car runs cooler and fluid stays in the radiator.I took the recovery fluid system (mess) out.