Thank God for the Sawzall, Now on to Radiators!
So here we go, I bolted up a flex fan had a racing aluminum radiator from Howe and I was excited to weld up some brackets and make this thing fit....WELL it was not that easy. It turns out that I could not get this configuration to work on paper or in my head (big surprise) so I returned all of the mechanical fan and Howe radiator shit for a direct bolt in BeCool Radiator and electric fan setup. Should be easy (Direct Bolt In) right? HAHAHA ya right.
So lets see...here in this picture you can see I had to remove about 3" of sheet metal from the grill to get the radiator pushed into the gill to clear the new motor. Seems when you switch out a v-belt system for a serpentine system you add inches to your block(who knew). This also means that i had to loose the hood safety latch, I hope the outside hooks are sufficient at keeping my hood from warping around my windshield frame on the highway.
Now that it's in and pushed as far forward as possible what could be the next problem? Well let's see, maybe the headlights won't fit because the radiator has been pushed into their space, well if that was your assumption then you should smoke a cigar. So dude and I had to trim the headlight housings to fit around the radiator and now everything fits fine under the hood with room to spare.
Ok now that's out of the way and the lights are in and I'm still hoping there is enough room to plug them in, what could possibly be wrong now? well let's see(look at the photos closely) oh...wait, yes the hood won't close cause the radiator is pushed so far forward that the cap hits he hood support. Well I doubt you guessed that but if you did, I will buy you the cigar. So out came the dremel and I went to work cutting some of the hood away to get it to close.
Me cutting away, thanks dude.
After i was finished doing al the sheet metal cutting I finished all my new cuts off with door trim from the auto shop. Looks nice cuts easy and is self adhesive. Sooooo after all that the radiator is in, the fan fits, the lights fit, the hood closes, and I have to say that aluminum looks damn cool behind the grill.
tahdah!
So lets see...here in this picture you can see I had to remove about 3" of sheet metal from the grill to get the radiator pushed into the gill to clear the new motor. Seems when you switch out a v-belt system for a serpentine system you add inches to your block(who knew). This also means that i had to loose the hood safety latch, I hope the outside hooks are sufficient at keeping my hood from warping around my windshield frame on the highway.
Now that it's in and pushed as far forward as possible what could be the next problem? Well let's see, maybe the headlights won't fit because the radiator has been pushed into their space, well if that was your assumption then you should smoke a cigar. So dude and I had to trim the headlight housings to fit around the radiator and now everything fits fine under the hood with room to spare.
Ok now that's out of the way and the lights are in and I'm still hoping there is enough room to plug them in, what could possibly be wrong now? well let's see(look at the photos closely) oh...wait, yes the hood won't close cause the radiator is pushed so far forward that the cap hits he hood support. Well I doubt you guessed that but if you did, I will buy you the cigar. So out came the dremel and I went to work cutting some of the hood away to get it to close.
Me cutting away, thanks dude.
After i was finished doing al the sheet metal cutting I finished all my new cuts off with door trim from the auto shop. Looks nice cuts easy and is self adhesive. Sooooo after all that the radiator is in, the fan fits, the lights fit, the hood closes, and I have to say that aluminum looks damn cool behind the grill.
tahdah!
posted by mf at 9:15 PM
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