The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 1946 Chevy 1/2Ton - New Radiator

Looking for some feedback, probably already brought up somewhere - Would you buy a new radiator off eBay ($175) or buy one from one of the common vendors that specialize in Chevys ($750). I have my original radiator and it is heavy and old. I'm thinking a new aluminum version would be much more efficient. I guess another option would be take my old radiator to the local shop to refresh/rebuild?

I bought the new eBay version but I also converted to a SBC. The new version is a direct fit for mounting in the radiator support if my '50 3600.

I didn't have much luck with mine after it got a new core, the metal for the tanks kept cracking from age and stress. I had the shop make it into a pressure radiator, I ran a 3 lb cap. The top tank would flex each time it would build pressure.

I replaced it with a aluminum replacement made by Afco, they do a lot of dirt track stuff. It cools much better then the stock one did. When shopping, look at how its made, mine has epoxy holding the tubes with welded tanks. The epoxy was seeping at one or two tubes and had to be repaired with some high-tech ( expensive ) epoxy. I won't buy another one unless its fully welded. The cheap e-bay ones have a pretty good following. There are lots of threads on lots of forums about radiators, so do your homework. The $750 ones from truck venders maybe the same cheaper ones from e-bay.
Don't even ask about copper verse aluminum. I like the aluminum for the larger tubes, less restrictive, more capacity. I had to reroute my lower hose, so with the larger tubes and longer hose, mine holds a extra gallon of coolant.

Take your old one to the radiator shop and see what they say. Maybe it just needs to be boiled out and soldered in a few places. It doesn't look exceptionally bad.

They'll be able to tell you whether it needs to be re-cored or not.

My 1941 Harrison was in decent shape. They boiled it out and soldered in a couple spots for $90.

Utah,

I just bought one with shroud and electric fan off ebay. Fitment of the radiator was fine but the bolts holes for the shroud were off as much as 1/8 inch which I had to burr out to fit. Not a big deal. The shroud holes were not slotted like the radiator which made some extra work. One issue I have is the support rod running from the cab to the top of the core support is directly over my radiator cap. I will need to cut and form a bend around the radiator cap it looks like for access. Waiting to see if holds water. Fingers crossed.

Took some pictures of my ebay radiator setup. As you can see, the brace rod from the cab to the top of the radiator core support obstructs the radiator cap. I plan to cut 6-8 inches out of the rod and replace with a curved rod circumventing the cap.

That looks good. Too bad about the cap being in the way. The radiator shop called me yesterday and said they could not repair mine. They could re-core it, but that would be $600+ or they could find a replacement at $350+. Not sure what I'm going to do next. It would be nice to find a place that could provide a radiator with the smaller upper hose connection and the larger bottom connection that would fit my 1960 water pump. OK, wait - I just thought if I don't use my stock radiator, I can just change the thermostat housing to the larger size and have both the same size hoses. Dang, now I got more to think about.

I did think about an electric fan setup. It's going to be a pretty tight fit though.

You're only going to do this once in your life. The high cost of a proper re-core will be long forgotten when a nice looking, original radiator is in place doing its job. Bite the bullet.

Does your radiator have the inverted U shape in the lower tank to allow a crank handle to pass through in case your battery dies? New ones don't. It's a cool feature.

Never mind about that. I forgot you have a 1960 235. I'd still re-core the original radiator.