Truck is home. Does leak a little coolant out of the top of the radiator. temp gauge works, doesn't get hot.

 

Radiator is expensive. Got quotes of $1300, no replacement cores available off-the-shelf, it'd have to be custom.

Or $600 if I was willing to do a bit of fab.

Instead, I bought two Champion 480s -- first one is racked about 3/8", so it's being returned. Chinesium all-aluminum, radiator is approx. the right size and have multiple mount flanges so I can fab to the grille/rad. support structure. Hose locations are OK -- top hose isn't centered, but off to the passenger side, so I'll have to do a custom upper hose. About $325 delivered.








The welding quality looks good. But, man, you don't want to touch the fins, they fold over if you blow at them hard.

 

Leaking out of the header? Can be brazed or soldered.

Pushing past the cap? New cap or coolant recovery tank will fix that.

 

Out of the welds on the header.
@asavage any pics in the truck?

 

Yeah, and there's always salad fixin's (ie pepper, etc.). GM cast aluminum block coolant additive [rolleyes].
Fixing a 40- or 50-year-old radiator takes luck. The header seam on my tank is one of those angled ones, where the core's top flange is actually half the tank. If that leaked, maybe it could be soldered, but as soon as I got any heat near the tubes, it'd be Game Over, as I can see so much white corrosion where the tubes meet the top tank, there's no way I'll be able to chase the tissue-thin tubes as they open up with heat.

Replacement cores with that angled top tank seem to no longer exist, so . . . custom, $1300. At least, that's what I found, though I didn't spend months looking.

You can run the system un-pressurized, but any air in the system will form corrosion quickly. The adoption of coolant overflow tanks wasn't to keep down the loss of coolant, but to reduce the amount of air in the cooling system, as corrosion happens mainly by the interaction of air and metal, not coolant and metal -- until the coolant's corrosion inhibitors die off, or the pH level gets too high from leaking head gaskets, etc., then galvanic action will take over.

I'll adapt the Chinesium aluminum radiator to work. It won't last 50 years like the original did, no.
---

I had a slow head gasket leak on the LF cyl. of the 4.0l in my last Aerostar, leaking to the combustion chamber; I ran it about 20k miles unpressurized -- and replaced that spark plug every 1k miles -- then sold it, and fully disclosed. It can be done, but the proper fix was more than the 'star was worth.

 

Nope. Those pics above are how it looks in my garage tonight. I've got to pull the exhaust manifolds this week and replace those fancy gaskets with the built-in plug wire shields, and then I can think about installing the new WP, clutched fan from an '82 LN700, and then the radiator -- after I round up some aluminum angle; I'm not paying HD prices for raw stock.

 

I have to ask, what is the best way to find parts..
Any parts store pretty much says "it isn't in the computer".

 

@asavage Found a radiator from summit.. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-382015
it matches the core sizes. more expensive, but not sure which is better.. aluminum or copper/brass.

 

I like it. It says "Radiator Material: Copper/Brass" down below in the Specs section. The dimensions look good. Same issue with the top outlet on the right, but copper for $600 (with tax) is a good price.

One issue is that it has but a single flange for mounting to the grille, and it's on the engine side; ours is on the grille side. So . . . maybe fab aluminum square-tube adapters? The Chinese Champion CC480 has dual flanges, so probably a tad easier to adapt & mount to our grille supports.

 

Considering opting for an electric fan setup as well. But probably should consider and alternator upgrade if I do that.

 

It looks as if you have the later clutched fan setup, which the MPC shows as optional for '78/79:




If so, you don't gain much by moving to electric fans, and the reliability actually goes down. Electric fans -- esp. aftermarket ones -- are less reliable than a viscous clutch fan.

If what you're avoiding is making the OEM fan shroud work with the non-OEM-fit radiator, I sympathize. I'm going to have to do the same, but I think it's just spacers and flatbar, which I can handle. And, unless you use multiple electric fans you're still going to need a shroud.

For my non-clutched '73, I bought a fan & clutch from an '82 F600 w/429. It bolts up to the '73 361 water pump hub, and is the same dia. as the '73's fan, so I'm hoping that merely hanging the old OEM fiberglass shroud will make it all work together.

 

Not looking forward to it, but will find out next week

 

Well... Looks close..

 

Truck seems like it wants to stutter and lose power at higher rpm/higher speeds.
Replaced the plugs, wires, cap, rotor, pickup coil, and armature.
The carb stamp says D9TE-9510-APA.
exhaust smells rich like gas.
it seems like it idles a little high, but no tach to measure it. just doesn't go into first without a little grind.


Forgive my ignorance. Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

I moved you back over here as you were in the wrong engine forum for your 370.

--going into first it will grind as 1st is non-synchro

--have you gone through the carb, set the float, cleaned it up, and adjusted it?
A high idle is a sign your idle circuits aren't working and the idle has been turned up to compensate, or never adjusted correctly, or you have a vacuum leak.

--these trucks do run rich as OEM. That's one way to keep them from burning a hole in a piston under heavy loads. But they can be leaned out if over rich.

--Does this thing still have a governor? That's going to limit RPM and MPH.