Ditto. Very cool. I rarely ever use A/C (and I live in Oklahoma too), preferring to use the vent. Removing latent heat from the HVAC box would be great. I bookmarked your link, Wayne. The only mod I would make is some type of bracket for valve. Easy enough to fabricate.

 

Well, I trired purging air from my truck this past weekend by putting only the passenger side front wheel on a car ramp, so that the radiator cap would be at the highest point. Ran the engine, squeezed the upper hose, and after a while got some white-foam coming up. I am torn over whether or not I have a bad head gasket. On Monday and today, the temp gauge went nuts, screaming up to about 240º, then zooming down to 190º, then stabilizing at 200º. It would occasionally creep up around 230º. Before anyone suggests that I have a bad temp sender I will note that I popped the hood when I got home and found coolant leaking from around the radiator cap and fresh signs she had blown. I have checked the exhaust several times and not found signs of coolant coming out of the exhaust, but the white foam has me concerned. My other thoughts are the rebuilt waterpump being bad.

 

If it were me I'd try a cheap test (free) before going any further.
1. Disconnect the heater hoses from the heater core. While its off, shoot some water through the heater and make sure its open; but thats not what's giving you grief. 2. Shoot water through one of the heater hoses and see if it comes out the other one and at what velocity. If a good flow goes through the engine, move to the radiator next. 3. Leave the cap on and force water through the top hose connection of the rad. and watch the bottom outlet for good flow. If the radiator and the engine both flow well, suspect the pump or t'stat. Good luck.
WC

 

Guys: These transmissions are notorious for overheating or running hot. My best friend lost his tranny last summer to a 30 minute pull of a trailer with a Bobcat, straight and flat the whole way. The tranny shop would not do the work without my buddy installing an after-market tranny cooler. Since then his tranny has had Zero problems and his truck is running cooler as well. Definately do the after-market tranny cooler and reinstall the air dams >>> they were there for a reason >>> you will get better cooling across the rad with them in. If you reworked the block ten months ago, and had the block hot tanked and magnifluxed, you should not have any passage problems or buildup..... Good luck.... BC

 

Visited my dad this past weekend (he lives in Illinois and I live in Oklahoma). Took the Cavalier instead of the truck mainly because the truck has three bad tires and gas was too costly.

Anyway, my parents have a 1973 Imperial, which was having an overheating problem that drove dad nuts for the longest time. He checked the t-stat, water pump, checked for blockages, etc. He took the car to a radiator shop, where, on a whim, the proprietor looked up the requirements for the car in a cross-reference manual. It turned out that the radiator in the vehicle did not have the right number of cores (I think he had a 3-core in it) but the cores were too small in diameter. The proper radiator needed to be 4-core with larger core diameter. That could be one possibility with my truck. There is also the possibility that I do not have enough fins-per-inch for cooling capacity.

Another point is that aluminum transfers heat better than brass. I have long suspected that the radiator is the source of my problems, as it always blows about a gallon of coolant and is then fine. Everything else in the system always checks out. So, sometime this week, when I have time, I am going to check with a radiator shop and find out if this radiator is indeed right for my truck.

 

today was a good display of the difference in towing vs not towing and how that affects engine temperature. i put in a 180 a few months back and was pleased with how the temp gauge just sat on about 180 with no variation, also no check engine light. also many months ago i put in a transmission cooler and had noticed that seemed to elimate higher engine temps of around 210 while doing slow speed trail crawling.

so today in georgia its about 90 degrees. i hook up the big heavy boat and head to the lake. on the way home we got AC on max, sitting in traffic, stop go, slow, stop, pulling boat all the way, OD off, never got over about 45 anyway. engine temps jumped up to 200-210 and stayed there.

so i'm figuring that towing is really putting the heat in the trans, and i've got my trans cooling line routed to rad first and then the cooler. combined with sitting, AC, etc, i'm running 30 deg hotter than normal. hmm.

 

An update, but not a cure (or could it be?). When I removed the engine and radiator, the shield on the driver's side was damaged, so I never thought about replacing it. I was missing the upper portion of what you see in this picture. Drove around today, and this time the temp gauge would stick at 200º, drop a bit, and then maybe go up a tad, but nothing more.



Here is what the passenger side looks like:


I figured that these trucks are like the old air-cooled Volkswagens -- leave out vital parts of the cooling system, and the engine will overheat. I am going to come up with something to replace the driver's side and even the passenger side. I am going to get the system pressure checked, but I am almost betting even money that the water pump has the impeller installed backwards.

 

Funny you should mention the backwards impeller (or not so funny?). In fact some water pumps are made for clockwise rotation and some counte clockwise! It depends on the belt routing for a particular application. I.E. air conditioning or not; power steering or not; etc. Is there an arrow on the pump face or body that you can see? Which way does the fan turn? Is the Belt routed on the inside or outside of the pully? Sorry for sounding so simplistic, but sometimes...
Anyway, you may have gotten the wrong pump and never new it. I find it hard to believe (but not impossible) that those little flaps, just going by the size of the exposed radiator area vs. those small flaps could cause all the grief you've been experiencing with this thing. However, as replacements you can try rubber carpet runner from a home center. Or roofing felt.
Good luck
WC

 

I have re-checked the belt routing many times to ensure my belt is turning the water pump in the correct rotation. IIRC, the Ram should have a CCW waterpump.

 

Went to AutoZone yesterday and got a pressure tester for a radiator. Pumped mine up to 16lbs and it held for more than 2 minutes. My suspicions lie with the water pump -- so, it looks like I'm going to pull the water pump and see if there is a flaw with the impeller.