Cooling system help needed

[bmwillia]

Originally Posted by JSeery

I had the same thought flatjack, but I'm not that familiar with the in-head pumps. If the hoses are the same size (or close) it should work the same.

Yeah. I typed too quickly. Now that I think about it more, I guess I could rig them on top of the water pumps.


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[F-ONE]

Brad,
Did you notice a smell of gasoline or exhaust in the radiator?
Years ago my 50 did what you describe, blowing the water out. It was a cracked cylinder.

That engine would run cool at idle all day long. If you put it under load, the water jacket would pressurize and blow coolant out of the radiator.

Hopefully this is not your problem. If it is blowing water out due to compression, hopefully it's a head gasket issue.

I recommend that you do a compression test! Do it cold and do another when the engine is at operating temperature. Watch out those plugs will be hot.

[Veeder]

I had a similar issue a number of years ago and found a couple of head bolts not torqued down - just worth a quick check

[bmwillia]

Originally Posted by Veeder

I had a similar issue a number of years ago and found a couple of head bolts not torqued down - just worth a quick check

I just torqued the head nuts down again. some of them were quite a bit under 55lbs.

I'd be really surprised if I had a cracked cylinder as F-ONE mentioned as I just had the heads off a few months ago and did not observe any cracks. I also do not smell gas or exhaust in the coolant. Thanks for the suggestion though.

On a side note, I mentioned earlier that The car was backfiring/popping out of the exhaust and flatford8 mentioned a cylinder firing at the wrong time. Since I have the radiator off at the shop, its easy to get to the distributor so I rechecked all of my plug wires to make sure none were crossed. I did have two of my plug wires crossed. After straightening that our I fired it up for a few seconds and she purred like a kitten. Thanks for the help on that Mark.

[JSeery]

Sounds like progress!

[Step-down]

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I was given a 59 AB in great shape . Engine had issues overheating.
Cleaned the block after tear down with wire brush , filled two large
jars with debris . My guess PO tanked the block maybe but
that didn't seem to help pull the slag out of the block .

[bmwillia]

Quick update:

Got the Radiator back from the shop. It was clogged pretty good and they rodded it out and its flowing good with no leaks.

I put it back on the car and filled it up with distilled water and took it for a drive. nothing came out of the top except when I hit a pretty big bump. I don't think the cap is sealing really well and I'll have to deal with that.

Temp was really low. Stayed around 150 while on the move and got as high as 170 idling in the driveway when I got home.

I ordered 180 degree stats. Should I have ordered 150 degree stats?

I also ordered a 3lb check valve for the overflow tube and I am losing coolant out of the tube but not alot as the level looked to be where is was when I filled it and the water I felt on the tube and the front axle could have just been from the bumps I hit and the splashing coolant making it down the tube.

So what do y'all think about the stats? 180 or 150?

[JSeery]

No on the 150 deg thermostats, you want at least 180 deg. The 3 psi valve in the overflow isn't going to help much until you get the cap sealed.

[bmwillia]

I'm running a greyhound cap and the problem is that the square piece on the bottom of the cap that is supposed to hold the brass piece in one place is rounded and I cant get the screw tight enough to hold the brass piece in place.

I really wanted to use the greyhound because my grandfather was so proud of it. I can remember him showing it to me when I was a kid.

Its a repro with attached tail, but he was really proud of it.

Maybe I'll just get a regular cap to drive with and put the dog on it for shows and stuff.

[flatjack9]

180 stats

[bmwillia]

Alright final update on this one.

I got my 180 stats from Robert Shewman installed, They are very nice stats with brass collars. Also installed Skip's check valve and fixed my greyhound cap. Drove quite a while today. Temp stayed between 175 and 190 the whole trip. Didn't lose any coolant even though I pushed it up to around 60mph a few times.

Thanks all for your help!

[JSeery]

Sounds good!

[flatford8]

That’s great!!.....your motor will love running at 190* !!!.....now how about some more pics of your car when you get time......Mark

[bmwillia]

[bmwillia]

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