Cool/Heat: Cooling and AC questions

[Cash]

Hi all..it's just me again, have a couple of issues that I could seriously use some advice on. First off, I have a 1961 Hawk with a 289, 3 speed manual w/overdrive. The engines near bone stock, except for the Edelbrock carb I swapped last year. The person who fixed her up added an underdash AC unit, and an electric fan in FRONT of the condensor that's manually controlled by a switch in the cabin. I need to change hoses, other than that the AC works well, but she seems to run a little hotter than I would like. The radiator is stock. My question(s)..what's the BEST cooling setup for a Hawk..an electric fan behind the radiator, or a fan and clutch? BTW I still have the original fan installed also.
If anybody has a good, proven setup, please advise..
Cash

[Chucks Stude]

I see that you are in McKinney, which is nice and warm this time of year(understatement). Procure an infared thermometer, to check the real temperature of the engine. The thermostat housing should be the hottest part of the cooling system. You did not state if the radiator or cooling system has been serviced. The cooling system service requires knocking out the freeze plugs, and rear cooling system plugs and scraping out and flushing the block. This goes a long way to getting the temp under control.

As far as hardware, the electric fan works well, and the viscous drive fan also works well. I went with a viscous drive fan, and a 7 blade fan off of an Olds 442. It moves lots of air, and is quiet. The 6 blade fan from our vendors works well, but sounds like the engine of a Boeing 727 spooling up. If you are going to go with the viscous drive, get an H/D water pump from one of the Stude vendors.






So far this year, the hottest I have seen this engine is 195 with the air on.

[Cash]

Thanks Chuck. My Hawk runs pretty cool as long as I'm moving, or it's not real hot. Main problem I have is "heat soak", or prolonged periods of idling or very slow speeds. She'll handle that allright, but she gets close to vapor locking until I get moving and get air flowing thru the radiator. If I nail the throttle she'll fall on her face, ease in to it and she's fine, 30 seconds or so back to normal. I really want to bullet proof my colling system so when I do fix the ac I'm not compounding any problems that might arise. I think I need to take the fan off the condenser, as I hardly ever use it, and i think it's blocking more air than it's pushing, even when on.
From what I've read, I have to have a fan clutch turned out to fit the Stude water pump...is that correct?
Cash

[Chucks Stude]

I did not turn the viscous drive. Anything that I had to do, I did to the spacer. The spacer is off of a stock stude fan. It is in the picture. The hard part was finding studs to bolt all of it together. NAPA is your friend for finding them. Turner Hardware on Josey lane in Carrollton might also be able to help.