Compression questions

[Planojc]

How are you determining that it is actually overheating?

[jers36]

Planjc: temperature gage shoots up to the top, coolant and steam shoots out the overflow.

[jers36]

Seth those are all good ideas and I will proceed one step at a time and try what you suggested. I won't give up thanks for your suggestions.

[miniceptor86]

Initial timing and advance correct? Radiator cap of the correct pressure I’m using 14# and not belching like the 0 pound that came with the car or the 7# I replaced it with. Initial Timing was off and not advancing. We had exhaust gas in the coolant testing at the tire shop maybe you could find a shop that would do the test gratis or cheap and save some green. Sometimes the leak can show up as white on the effected spark plug(s)

[jers36]

Yesterday I was all excited I flushed out the engine and radiator for about 30 minutes then filled it up with distilled water and a bottle of Prestone super coolant. I started it up and let it set and idle for about 20 minutes the temperature gauge barely moved up, so I took it for about a 20 minute drive and the temp gauge only raised up to about 3\4 of normal and would fluctuate with engine rpm. Great it's fixed! today I drove it to town to the post office about a 15 mile round trip and just when I was about 4 miles from home the temp gauge went to the top and fluxed back & forth between normal & high. I checked engine radiator & hose temperatures with a heat gun & head temperature was about 175 lower radiator hose temps were about 100. I let it cool down and started looking around with a flashlight and found prestone anti freeze seeping out of the radiator fins in two different places. So I need to get the radiator repaired or replaced. Brassworks can build a brand new original radiator for about $1500 or I can try to find someone to recore this one. What do you guys think what would you do?

[19Fordy]

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Recore will save you $$$.

[Bored&Stroked]

You'll probably find that a re-core will be pushing a $1000 - my 32 recore cost me over $800 and that was almost 10 years ago. While a radiator is probably mandatory, you still may be having issues with the engine itself. Maybe check the rest of it out while the radiator is getting done?

There can be a lot of rust/scale in the water jackets, you may have head-gasket issues, etc.. If it was mine, I'd probably pull the heads, inspect the block for rust, sand and crud in the lower parts of the block and clean it as best as you possibly can. I'd put new head gaskets on it and get it ready for the new radiator.

[cas3]

Old brass can become brittle and crack. A new brassworks radiator is expensive, but money well spent, and they are top notch quality.

[Ken/Alabama]

Those temps with the heat gun aren’t hot. So why is the temperature gauge fluctuating? Perhaps a faulty sending unit ?

[jers36]

I guess the way I said that was confusing, you are right, 175 is not hot but normal high on the temperature gage I assumed is about 180 degrees and as I was driving home it was fluctuating between that high mark to pegging out at the top of the gage and back down depending on stop and go traffic. When I was going into town the temp gage was only going halfway up to what I am calling the 180 mark. That is why I started looking for a leak and found them on the radiator core. I hadn't seen a leak there before and out of curiosity I just grabbed the heat gun to verify the temp was in range at 175. I have a new sending unit in the truck.