Is my bronco overheating?

flexmerc said:

Do you have a part number for that bracket?

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The bracket consists of two flat plates that are almost identical. One bolts to the front of the cylinder head, and the other bolts to the front of the water pump. They both extend to the passenger side and cradle the compressor. Mine were just made longer to clear the fan and shroud.
You could make your own quite easily by tracing the ones you have on a piece of 1/4" steel plate and cutting it out with a saw, torch , or plasma. Just make the extension longer.

blubuckaroo said:

Here's what Vintage air made for me after I complained. The bracket moves the compressor four inches to the passenger side. It works great!

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The bracket from BCB has the same problem just on the driver side of the engine instead. I had to modify the bracket to move the compressor out about 3" and back towards the head so I could run the forward belt groove. The way it came there is no way to run an 18" fan which is what it needs to keep cool.

Justafordguy said:

The bracket from BCB has the same problem just on the driver side of the engine instead. I had to modify the bracket to move the compressor out about 3" and back towards the head so I could run the forward belt groove. The way it came there is no way to run an 18" fan which is what it needs to keep cool.

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This/\/\/\


But I made it work as-designed. I modified my fan ....not a perfect solution but I have never over heated....it gets pretty darn hot sitting in traffic in central Florida summer heat (240°)...but its never puked on me.

Is your water pump pulley smaller than your crank pulley? It should be about 1" smaller.

chuck said:

Is your water pump pulley smaller than your crank pulley? It should be about 1" smaller.

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I have Chucks teeny tiny water pump pulley and his humongous crank pulley. My fan and water pump spin their ass off. Haha....


If you're staying v-belt, then Chucks pulleys are the way to go.

bronconut73 said:

I have Chucks teeny tiny water pump pulley and his humongous crank pulley. My fan and water pump spin their ass off. Haha....


If you're staying v-belt, then Chucks pulleys are the way to go.

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I don't understand the need to change the ratio.?:?
I understand the physics involved, about spinning faster and possibly moving more air and coolant, but why?

Here you have a relatively stock engine that is having trouble keeping cool.
The PO must have had problems too, otherwise he wouldn't have spent $$$ on special cooling parts that didn't fix it.

I'd fix the fan issue then reconvene.

I here ya' old man....
Blu,
Hearing you respond reminds me of my recently passed old man.
Sometimes I poke you just to hear it...

bronconut73 said:

I here ya' old man....
Blu,
Hearing you respond reminds me of my recently passed old man.
Sometimes I poke you just to hear it...

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bronconut73,
I'd like to talk about dads.
I'm going to continue this in the off topic lounge.

I don't think a little reminiscing is inappropriate for an off-topic comment or three.
Besides, sounds like he'd probably have jumped right in to figure out the OP's heating dilemma anyway.
Or made something else work better!

Gonna head over to OTL to check out the hot-rod pic.

Paul

Well ok Paul. Here's Dad in his hot rod. This is about 1947.

That is one cool f'n photo. I have something similar but its my grandfather. My Dad would have been in a 60's era muscle car. Blu is a little older than me...

This is how I see it. At idle, 650 rpms the stock pump moves little water because the tolerances are very loose in the pump chamber and the end restriction is the thermostat. The main diff. between the stock pump and the hi volume pumps is the tolerances, the hi volume pumps have tighter tolerances so moves more water at slow speeds. I say slow speeds because of the t-stat end restriction. The stock and HV pump does move more water at higher speeds but because of the restriction the stock and HV pumps get closer in volume. Anyway, at low rpms little water moves with the stock pump but the engine is not making that much heat but when the rpms increase so does the heat and water and air and everything should work out. BUT the EB design was made for a I6 in the days when all gas had lead to help cool. Then they stuffed in a 289-302 but the radiator only got slightly larger then they add A/C then removed the lead then decided that all engines need to run hotter. and we load the engine up with bigger alt. P/S and auto trans. All in all the "stock" EB most likely runs hotter than they did when they were new. So my thought is moving more water and air at low rpms will cool the EB better. Before questioning my thoughts have a look at the water pump/ crank pulleys on a mustang and you will see that it is not my original thought.

As usual Chuck brings the eb education to the table.

In Blu's defense he always forgets how modified a lot of our eb's are. He has kept his remarkably stock.
He did the 5 speed for the overdrive but probably liked the 3 on the tree. He had to do the twin stick with the 5 speed, but he definitely preferred the J-Shifter. I think like a lot of us he had to do a/c; I swear its hotter now than when I was a kid in the 70's, lol. I believe Blu has a slight lift too but prolly only to get better quality/riding springs.

He strongly believes in the original engineering of our eb's and only strays away when he can't go back to stock.

blubuckaroo said:

I don't understand the need to change the ratio.?:?
I understand the physics involved, about spinning faster and possibly moving more air and coolant, but why?

Here you have a relatively stock engine that is having trouble keeping cool.
The PO must have had problems too, otherwise he wouldn't have spent $$$ on special cooling parts that didn't fix it.

I'd fix the fan issue then reconvene.

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I agree that you should do a lot of things before spending money. Like timing, air/fuel mix, coolant flow, shroud, t-stat, fan then water pulleys, pump, then radiator.

blubuckaroo said:

Here's Dad in his hot rod. This is about 1947.

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That's definitely a great shot! Glad these things get kept for us to look at literally 70 years later.

Paul

chuck said:

...have a look at the water pump/ crank pulleys on a mustang and you will see that it is not my original thought.

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Agree. Many engines have smaller, and some larger water pump pulleys.
Heck, even Ford probably had 50 or 60 different pulley combinations on different vehicles/engines just during the sixties!
I had a heck of a time finding the dual groove ones I wanted to install on my EB back when I first got a bigger alternator.
Diameter and depth choices seemed endless!

Obviously not all of them were for 302's, as some would not even fit the area available even when the water pump pulley was smaller by a good bit. But there were plenty of combos on our engine type to make life entertaining while I searched.

Paul

bronconut73 said:

...I swear its hotter now than when I was a kid in the 70's, lol.

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Funny you mention the '70's bronconut. Around here, this extra heat is exactly how I remember it. But that was from the 60's. For me, the '70's were cooler than now as well.
Not sure about your side of the country, but over here (at least in the Bay Area) the current heat reminds me of growing up in the '60's summers so far. The first time I experienced what became abnormally (to me) cool weather happened towards the end of the school year in '73. Sounds like that's similar to what you remember from the '70's as normal to you. Cool-ish for me.
I can timeline things in my memory based on the school year. Up until then, by the middle of May every year from '62 to '72 it was basically already summertime and too hot to pay much attention to anything in class. Well, anything but the looming summer vacation.
Temps probably consistently in the high 80's to mid 90's and then cool again at night. That year though ('73), instead of being too hot to study in school (nobody had A/C in schools around here back then) I remember being amazed that it was cool enough to need jackets in the morning and never heated up much above the 70's and low 80's during the peak of the day. And it even rained a time or two well into summer vacation. Morning fog was the norm down here too, where before that we only heard about it north of us closer to SF. Very strange.
Prior to that you could count on the fingers of one hand how many times it rained in the ten previous years that time of year. Different in the mountains of course, but around here it hardly misted. Around here, there were deluges in the rainy season, and none at all in the sunny/playing/riding/camping/hiking/shooting/skateboarding season.

It didn't even get really warm that year until August and we had a very mild fall and winter until near the end of the year.
And it has pretty much stayed cool-ish that way for the last 40 years or so. Inconsistently so, but definitely not like the early years of my memories. Became the new normal then, for all these many years.

Sure, there were exceptions, but until this year here in the South Bay it never acted like I remembered from my childhood. This year, we may have had a record rainy season, but not that much different from what I remember our rainy seasons being before. And summers used to regularly reach the 110 mark for a week or so in August. We just dealt with that in early June this time, so not just exactly like the old days, but closer than it has been for a long time.
Can't wait to see what comes up in August!

So just a little different timing now, but sure takes me back to my childhood summer fun days.
We'll see if it lasts, or is just a short hurrah until the next change.

I tried, but could not find any charts or graphs to support what I think happened, but am very curious myself to see if my childhood memories reflect reality, or just what I could perceive at that age and location.
All I know is that I'm glad I've got A/C in the cars AND the house now!

Paul

In the 80's we would hit the Basketball courts in the 'hood in the middle of August summer days and nights. Only time you could get space on the court.

It was so hot in the middle of the day out there on the court. Sometimes two older guys (mid 30's) would join in. We didn't know they were cops until much later, lol...They were probably there to protect us. Stupid white kids in an old Bronco in the middle of the 'hood playing B-Ball, lol...And yes...the same "old Bronco" I have today.

But yes Donk...the weather has been evolving over the last 40 or 50 years. It may be normal oddities within our historical climate for our hemisphere or it could be the effects of our fossil fuel burning, and careless control of volatile gasses...
Time will tell...

Going down this path myself - gotta find a local carb guy - think mine is off

Been chasing the running hot issue for over a year. Made several changes & none of them made significant changes, but there there has always been two constants - Timing and Carb setting and I have no idea what either of them are...

Initial set up - Skinny Flex Fan w/ full steel shroud, triple pass rad from WH, stock water pump with same size pulley as crank, 180 deg Tstat, 50/50 mix in rad and Vintage Air A/C condenser in front of rad
Ran 180 deg down the road, but quickly crept to 230+ while sitting
REV 1 - added two 12" pusher fans up front
Ran 195 deg down the road, crept to 215 while sitting-but not as fast as before
REV 2 - removed A/C condenser (considered remote mounting it if this worked)
Ran 180 down the road, crept to 210 while sitting
REV 3 - (Current Set up-finished Sunday) Swapped flex fan for rigid fan from WH, removed pusher fans, put A/C condenser back in, added Royal Purple Ice to 70/30 rad mix. I reluctantly had to modify core support for this - seems rad is mounted almost straight up and down and engine has a slight tilt backwards so had clearance issues at the bottom. I removed lower rad supports and cut off "lip" of lower part of the core support in front of the rad then re-attached rad supports to now flat area on lower part of core support and reinforced it with 1 1/4"x 1/8" Flat Bar. This almost matched the rad tilt to engine tilt and now the fan fits and the condenser still fits between rad and core support.
Now runs 175 deg down the road, slowly creeps to 200 while sitting - the best so far, but don't like it and won't wheel it like this

Engine is a mild build 331 and the builder failed to put a timing pointer on it-the mech who installed it didn't catch it until he tried to time it so timed it by ear.
While doing the work above I added a Scott Drake timing pointer to the drivers side of engine (couldn't see the stock one on pass side even if it was there because of water hose) and found TDC & put a MSD timing tape on the balancer. Now have to get a light and time it.

Hoping for improvement when timing and carb are right cuz I'm getting close to the last straw!

Is your water pump pulley smaller than your crank pulley?