Over the years I have posted some photos of the radiator and core support in my 56 but never had a post dedicated to the subject. I have recently gotten some requests to share some more info so here it is.


The radiator is made by Mattson and is an adaptation of the radiator they make for their custom tri-five setups. It is a dual flow which explains the unorthodox inlet/outlet arrangement. The core support is my design and I am attaching a pdf file showing the basic structure. The sheet metal was fabricated by Direct Sheetmetal to my specs. There have been some modifications and adjustments along the way to remove the front tilt hood mounts and to shock isolate the radiator mounts but structurally the design has remained the same.

 

The wind deflectors and upper valance panel were constructed of 14 ga steel...a little overkill but very stout. Here is the drawing and another photo of the support after I added some radiator mounting mods and a plate to protect the lower portion of the radiator. The 2x4 is there so that I have a place to clamp the structure for painting.

 

Is there a cooling performance advantage, space advantage, cost advantage? Looks very clean, just curious what the driver was.

 

Charlie does nice work.

 

From a design standpoint I wanted to get rid of the vertical radiator and associated sheetmetal...one of the biggest PITAs of the original design was opening the hood and having the radiator there with no way to lean into the engine compartment except from the side that didn't have the best access due to the low hanging hood. I had originally opted to go with a forward tilt hood but wanted to stay with the rear hinges. As for the radiator itself...it is a dual pass design, the water flows in at the top left and passes through the upper half of the core then down and across the lower half of the core. This is the most efficient design in crossflow radiators. I just wanted to improve on the design of the OEM setup and to make something different...kinda like the 56 Chevy 3100 front bumper and the chrome 53 F100 grille with 56 F100 headlights (not shown in any of these pics). I build what I like and have no problem with changing anything that Henry did if it doesn't make sense to me.

 

FWIW, I think you're on the right track. I love that clean look you've achieved. You 53-56 guys are fortunate with the extra engine compartment room you have vs. us 48-52 folks. Makes doing mods like yours a lot easier. Nice work.

 

Charlie,
Thanks for this info. I know that I was at least one of those asking about this. I would guess you gained approximately 3" by removing the horse collar. Do you have measurements for the pieces? I could measure but why invent the wheel if you have them.

I really like the clean look you get with the hood open but how are you going to secure your hood?

Thanks for the great ideas, keep them coming.

 

I had the radiator fabricated with cantilever mounts, the mounting bolts come in from the side and are hidden by the tanks. The wind deflectors are the same dimension as the OEM but do not mount to the core support in the same manner. I did not have much leeway in the dimensions of the radiator since the cores are all somewhat standard...this drove many of the dimensions. I had to juggle the OEM dimensions to meet the radiator sizing and this is what I ended up with.

 

Thanks, I looked at this while out there today and based on your concept I can pick up 2" extra of clearance by fabbing a frame and eliminating the horse collar. I will have to make some minor changes but I will steal you idea and make it work for my radiator.

 

Thanks for posting this, I loved the clean and accessible look of this the first time I came across a photo of it. With the low hanging front of the hood, and the high radiator / sheetmetal in that area, it makes it hard to see let alone work on these things (especially if you have duck's disease like me). If you have a nice engine to show off, this makes a much cleaner look indeed. Nicely done, one thing I definitely hope to do to mine.

 

I like it. I'd like to see how you going to mount the hood latch also. I'm thinking to do something similar. Nice work.

 

I have a pair of mini bear claw latches for the hood...one on each side. I haven't finalized the design for the latches yet but that's the plan for now.