Thread: getting cold, anyone ever make a grille cover/screen for a 1930s Ford?

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if you keep the water in the block and out of the rad it has to come up to temp . opposite of summer temps .

Some items of interest I'd like to know-------
What engine? Heads? head gaskets? water pump? ALUMINUM heads or pump? under/over drive on pump speed? electric pump? radiator size, number of fins per inch, alum/brass?, tube size/number?, guage type,oem?,6 or 12 volt?, positive/negative ground? type of sensors?,location?(not ON pump, but into pump/head) type of sealant used on threads of sensors?, water pump bypass for idle low rpm flow?

Also valve covers--------finned aluminum??????

any flow restrictors in hoses??

Reverse drive on waterpump?(serpintine belt drive turning pump backwards)

Transmission heat exchanger mount/plumbing------

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

Some items of interest I'd like to know-------
What engine? Heads? head gaskets? water pump? ALUMINUM heads or pump? under/over drive on pump speed? electric pump? radiator size, number of fins per inch, alum/brass?, tube size/number?, guage type,oem?,6 or 12 volt?, positive/negative ground? type of sensors?,location?(not ON pump, but into pump/head) type of sealant used on threads of sensors?, water pump bypass for idle low rpm flow?

Also valve covers--------finned aluminum??????

any flow restrictors in hoses??

yeah I'd like to know all of that as well.


bought the car from a 92 year old man that built it 20 years ago and I use the term built loosely as it appears he had several shops do work on it and things are just a mess. for example the transmission bolts sheered off awhile back, as they were not automotive grade bolts, but whatever he picked up at home depot, when we went thought the car we found the same in several places and a mix of metric and standard, and mis-matched sizing and threading. even a lot of forced in striped threads and bolts.

Then of course there was the issue where he installed radius arms on the front and welded them to the '39 frame, but didn't re-enforce the frame and they ripped completely off the car and tearing the frame in the process.


or we can talk about the issue where he mounted the battery in the trunk and used an el-cheapo battery from auto-zone, installed a power actuator for the trunk lid with no release and no relocation of the battery terminals, so when the battery died I was assed out of getting into the trunk, and had to remove the entire back seat to access the area, then have my 9 year old daughter who was the only one small enough to get between the cross framing he welded back there to pull the cotter pin on the actuator. All of which we were completely unable to do until we figured out how to open the doors because he shaved the handles and installed an electric release. not a manual, so with a dead battery we couldn't open the doors either.


Then of course there was the issue where he installed the door poppers, windows, headlights, and cooling fans on the same circuit and used 30 amp inline fuses daisy changed together forming a single line of 120 amp worth of fuses and the resulting dash electrical fire that I had in my office parking lot one day, and luckily enough I was cognizant of the smell of burning electrical parts and had an extinguisher within reach so it only resulted in a melted mess of wires and not a full blown car fire.


or how about the rear windows that ran like a waterfall when I got caught in rain, and when I took it to the shop they told me it appears that bathroom caulking was used to seal the windows..


or that he lied to be and told me the motor was a ZZ4 crate motor and when I pulled the casting numbers discovered it was out of a 1970-1973 Camaro.


or how about a brake booster and reservoir that are installed under the car with no access panel and less than an inch of access to remove the cover and refill the reservoir.

or would you like to discuss the wiring of the headlights where the high beams were wired to the second pull of the headlight switch, and the first pull was headlights and parking lights which overheated and burned out the switch.


or lowered suspension with tires and wheel offset in the rear that resulted in rubbing against the upper inner fender wall that literally wore a hole through the fiberglass fenders, and the rubbing was apparently from the moment the tires were installed because the tire sat in the worn out hole when stationary.



I bought the car to finish it off, as the interior wasn't done and since it had this ongoing overheating issue he couldn't figure out he just wanted to get rid of it, and while I got it for IMO a good price based on what I see other 1938-1939 Tudors or Humpbacks going for, I spent all of my budget for the interior and paint on rebuilding the car and correcting all of these issues.


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Now this morning I have a ticking/tapping/clicking sound coming from the motor which wasn't there yesterday..

I'm thinking it is spark knock, the car is having issues with cold start, appears the electric choke isn't functioning correctly, and I noticed what I think is part of the carb gasket sitting on the intake; pieces of black material that appears to be the corners of the gasket and the carb was loose, the bolts that hold it to the intake each took an 1/8-1/4 turn when I checked them and I was able to slightly rock the carb with my hand. it's definitely wasn't secure. I hope I can make it home 30 miles tonight without damaging anything.. I'm on the fence about calling AAA and having it towed home.

I been reading thru your prior posts-------I'd have it towed!!!!!!!!!!

welcome to the 80's

Originally Posted by shine

welcome to the 80's

hmm.. 70s

Man, my sincere condolences. What a mess.

jebus krispties.

so I had it towed to my buddy Jeff's shop.

pulled the carb. it is an edelbrock 1406 on an eldebrock intake.

there is what appears to be a home made spacer with 3 gaskets on top of the plate and 3 gaskets underneath the spacer, it appears done so to raise the carb up, so that his home made air cleaner would clear the distributor, oh yeah and he cut the air cleaner bolt down to the nub and put one of those double side nut things on it so his air cleaner could screw into it, because it has a fancy chrome flush bolt instead of the common wingnut.


the guy was a machinist for Northrop or so he claimed. There are a lot of these "home made" parts on the car, and while the quality of the parts look good and they give a unique look to the vehicle, this is not the first I have run into that needed adapting to make it fit or work with off the shelf parts.


The carb has some issues, electric choke needs to be replaced, looks like most of the screws on it are stripped, since they are Torx, it appears to me and Jeff that someone attempted to use a Phillips head or make shift something to turn them and stripped them all to hell.


I'm opting to replace the carb, replace the air cleaner (was going to at some point anyway) buy a carb spacer if needed, etc. and replace everything. While cheaper to rebuild lord knows what other issues I might run into. $400 for a new warrantied carb is IMO a better option.

While he has the car Jeff is going to try and figure out the under heat issue. I trust Jeff, he was my dad's mechanic and the only guy that ever worked on dad's '62 Corvette. He specialized in pre-1970 cars, while his shop does everything for bread and butter money, building motors on pre-1970 cars is their specialty.

How about some pictures showing details of the cooling system, water pump, valve covers, manifold????????

Geeze! What a mess that poor car was! I'd probably go the new route on the carb too. My luck I'd get it apart to find more hackery inside it too!

Well Jeff talked me into rebuilding the carb, he bought a full rebuild and gasket kit for it, as well as the electric choke kit, all told was under $120 for parts. If any issues continue, then we will go the replacement route. Jeff didn't think it was worth replacing for >$500 if a rebuild kit fixed the issues.

I did buy a Chrome Batwing air cleaner from summit, https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g3028/reviews/

I like it, I think it looks much better than what was there.


The ticking noise was once again a bolt failure, Exhaust manifold bolts were some fancy Allen head chrome garbage, likely grade 5, 2 were missing on the left side, all were loose on both sides. Replaced with good quality grade 8.
bolts.



still working on the under heat issue.

I did find a 1938 winter radiator cover on ebay, with hardware, the seller said that it was never used and still in the FOMOCO box. he sent me some images of it and said the leather/vinyl was in good shape. box is dated 1972 so it is a bit old, I'm guessing a NOS part.. wasn't too thrilled on the price ($65 with shipping) but beggars can't be choosers I guess.

s-l500.jpg

I know you'll dis-agree with me and that's alright. I'll just offer you this.
If you installed a new thermostat and it looked like the top one,
then I'd suggest you should replace it.
With one like the bottom one.
The first one is a "poppet" style, the second is a "sleeve" style.
The poppet simply opens then closes, whether it needs to be fully open or not. The sleeve style opens slower but modulates more evenly and can hold a more even temperature. It can also outflow a poppet style thermostat. If you went to a local auto part store and picked up any old thermostat for 4 or 5 bucks...
Then you got a poppet style and got what you paid for.

Consider this, Bucket T rods have completely exposed motors. Using your idea as a guide, they'd never build temperature and that simply isn't the case. Your radiator is very efficient, you have good airflow through it. Your thermostat is simply sending to much coolant to it.

As I said, I know you'll disagree and that's ok. It's your car and your money. I can only offer my opinion and experience.

first thing i would check is flow at start up. i have never seen an air cooled sbc . i have seen more than one hung thermostat over the years.

I had a BMW 318 while in Germany. It had a weird thermostat set up. The thermostat was in a housing which was suspended between three hoses. The car was running hot, so I paid the big dollars for a new tstst housing assembly. No improvement. So I paid $5 to get a used one from a junkyard, just to see what happens. Problem solved.

Anyway: the moral of the story is that even new parts can be defective.

Good luck.

Re reading the post:

One reader chimed in that he had experienced similar trouble resultant of poor combustion from cold air intake. It might be interesting to cobble up an intake hose to draw warm air off the radiator. It wouldn't have to be pretty just for a quick test.