The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Early 'Bolts (1916-1936 1st Half) 1927 Radiator question

Turns out that I have two radiators. One seems to need more repair than the other. The good one seems like it would be good to go. However .... it has brackets on the side that won't allow it to be installed with my radiator supports and cowling. I'm wondering if this one is incorrect for the '27 ...?

The other one has no brackets on its sides (but the sides seem damaged). I'm wondering if this is the correct one and the other one is a donor to be made to fit? The damaged one is a Harrison. The other one is not marked.

?????

John,

Does the Harrison radiator have a date code stamped on the tank?

Mike B

I'll go look. It's out in the van. I plan on taking it over to Animal over the weekend.

So is 252H 1927 the date code?

I can't help decipher the numbers (I don't have any 4-cylinder parts books), but yes, I would call that the part number and date code.

Mike B

I don't know the answer about which is 'correct', but I've seen both.

Last year when I re-cored Lurch's radiator, I combined a few parts from 3 different radiators. Two used the surround brackets and one had the brackets soldered to the core.

Since Lurch's old radiator used the surround brackets, that's what I went with. I suspect that your radiator with the soldered brackets will work just fine, but you don't need the surround brackets for that one.

Does it have a bracket on the bottom to bolt the radiator to the chassis front cross member? If not, you might need to fabricate something that is in the same vein as the bottom surround bracket.

BTW, my re-core job with a new three-row copper regular core + labor came to around $750 at a local old-school radiator shop.

New honey comb cores started at $3000! This was in May 2022.

Dean

Thanks Dean. I'm thinking that the one with the surround brackets is good and that I just need my radiator guy to take both radiators and use what ever he needs to make one work with what I have. I do have the bottom part that bolts to the front cross member. In fact, I have three of them. The best one I blasted and painted already and its the one you see in the picture. The other two seem to still have remnants of the bottom part of the core soldered to them. I'm hoping to take the whole business over to the radiator guru tomorrow and have him do whatever he needs to do to make it right -- including the shell so he can see how it all ultimately needs to work together.

Both rads seem to have serviceable honeycomb cores.

The rad with the side brackets attached ... What does *that* go to?

I don't know what the radiator with the side brackets goes to. Maybe the folks at https://vccachat.org/ can answer that one.

One thing to keep in mind with the old honey-comb cores: they might flow freely, but might not transfer heat well. This was the case with Lurch's radiator. I was limited to driving under 25 mph before he would start to overheat.

The new radiator core does a great job at helping Lurch keep his cool. Now I can cruise between 30 and 35 without any worries.

Ever onward, Dean

Thanks Dean.

Caught up with the radiator guy today. We took some measurements and neither one of the radiators will work. He also said that both of them were damaged beyond his ability to repair, anyway. So I am looking for a radiator now. Or at least a core I can get the top and bottoms of my Harrison to got to.

John, a tubular type core can probably be adapted to your tanks with strips of copper soldered into the groove in the upper and lower header, and then shaped to fit the tanks. Since there won't be any pressure to deal with, the solder joints won't need to be super strong, just leakproof.
Jerry

Thanks Jerry. Spent some quality time with it again today noodling through it. Finding anyone to actually *do* that could be the trick.

I have an enquiry posted to the Brassworks to see what they can do for me. I've been checking all the others I've researched through Dean, the VCCA site, the AACA site and even some Brass Era sites I've found. Yikes, these early honeycomb core radiators apparently are hard to replicate and hard to restore. Looks like I'm going to be loading up the dollar gun and setting the selector to "Full Auto" ...

I guess if this restoration was easy, we'd have a heck of a lot more early 'Bolts on the site ...

And I haven't even gotten to the carburetor yet ... I see on the Filling Station site that they want $250 just for the end cap on the vacuum fuel pump ... Yeeeeooooow. Good thing mine is good

Update:

The good radiator with the side brackets attached works after I cut the brackets off.

Done!

A sawzall is often an essential tool for a restorer.

Looking good!