coolant puking happy ending so far

[bk53]

I was losing coolant, looked like it was dripping from the overflow. I have a 53 f100 with a warmed over 276. Anyway I changed the radiator cap with one from I don't remember which old car parts outfit. So if it continues, the problem can't be the cap right? wrong. I worried my guts out over what the war department (wife) would say about all the cracked block horror stories, especially when this block had several repairs. To make a long story short a buddy took the deep cap off his nova (doesn't look too out of place next to the delco dizzy) but its 6#s and low and behold, no more coolant puking. wierd thing to me is that it also brought the running temperature down. I still may ask a question about 4 cores and system cooling capacity someday, but dang. This truck likes the deep cap. I never heard of such a thing but.... Most of you have forgot more than I've ever known about these flatheads.

Best regards,

Bill

[Mike51Merc]

Original flathead radiators take the deep caps.

Everybody loves a happy ending.

[G.M.]

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Originally Posted by bk53

I was losing coolant, looked like it was dripping from the overflow. I have a 53 f100 with a warmed over 276. Anyway I changed the radiator cap with one from I don't remember which old car parts outfit. So if it continues, the problem can't be the cap right? wrong. I worried my guts out over what the war department (wife) would say about all the cracked block horror stories, especially when this block had several repairs. To make a long story short a buddy took the deep cap off his nova (doesn't look too out of place next to the delco dizzy) but its 6#s and low and behold, no more coolant puking. wierd thing to me is that it also brought the running temperature down. I still may ask a question about 4 cores and system cooling capacity someday, but dang. This truck likes the deep cap. I never heard of such a thing but.... Most of you have forgot more than I've ever known about these flatheads.

Best regards,

Bill

Bill I have written posts maybe a 100 times on this subject. For some reason which I never got to the root of MOST old Ford PRESSURE caps don't seat on the brass washer like seat at the bottom of the filler neck. You can feel the spring pressure of the rubber bottom of the cap on the bottom seat before the underside of the top of the cap hits the filler neck when it's working. A thin rubber washer can be placed on the bottom brass seat down in the filler neck to make the cap work. A pressure cap ONLY works on radiators with the over flow coming out of the filler neck. They won't work when the over flow comes off the top of the radiator, for these Skip Haney makes a 3 lb pressure valve that attaches to the bottom of the over flow tube. As I have stated many times that on ALL of these old Fords with stock radiators the radiator tubes restrict the flow of coolant making it back up in the top tank. Without a pressure cap or valve the water backs up in the top tank and go's out the over flow tube. Now the system is low on coolant and the engine runs hot. With the pressure cap or valve the over flow is sealed or stopped off which causes the coolant to be forced through the radiator tubes. The system can be filled up into the filler neck and the engine runs cooler making use of the full 22 quarts of coolant. You noted above you saw an improvement in cooling. This was due to more water in the system and more coolant being PUSHED or FORCED though the cooling system. The only change you made was to the cap and got better cooling. There are 3 things required for better cooling, more coolant in the system, more flow of coolant through the radiator and more air through the radiator. The poor cooling fans and the location of some of the fans on the old Fords is a problem and don't provide enough air in hot weather in slow traffic or long idle periods. Forward motion of the car provides forced air cooling, going into the wind even provides better cooling than a tail wind even though it takes more power to move forward against the wind I have seen a 10 degree lower temperature going into the wind. These engines should run in the 180 range, the pressure cap has NOTHING to do with raising the boiling point of the coolant as these engines should never get much over 200 if working properly. Under 210 the pressure is less than 3 lbs. Over this pressure the pressure cap or valve then becomes a safety valve venting excessive pressure. G.M.