My stock 49 rad was toast. But, I have a 1986 Ford rad that my son bought new for his truck but he never installed it. When he came of age and left home, he left it behind so It ended up in my parts bin.

When it came time to install a rad in my 49 I priced out all the after market rads and even got a price on a recore for the original.
One night in my garage I was staring at all my junk and I spotted the 86 rad an began thing about it as as a replacement. I picked it up and tilted it sideways. Amazingly it fits perfectly with a simple bracket I fabricated. I called up the local radiator shop and the guy there said it will work great with out a doubt.

The 86 radiator was intended for a 360 engine so it will be a good match for the 351w. One slight problem was the inlet and outlet sizes were inverted. A trip to Napa solved that, they sell hose reducers that fit inside the rad hose.

I thought I would share this

 

much clearance with hood down? looks tall!

 

Oh wow, my mistake. If you're reading this honey, I love you!

I've decided to go the with the re-core. Hopefully they don't beat it up too much.

 

That's a nice fit. It looks like it was made to go in there.

I don't want to alarm you, but it looks like someone secretly replaced your air filter with folgers.

 

Well, at least it looks more 'original' with the dents. Like its been in there for 50+ years.

 

I dropped the radiator off at the shop back in December. They finished it today. (And it looks darn good too!)

 

Looks good. I'm glad they did good work for you.

 

The only bad part is that I got impatient after a couple of months and ordered a cheap aluminum replacement, which I installed two days ago.