The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk pics of brass radiator tops...

guys,
if any of you have the brass tops on your radiators polished, please post them here.
i am thinking about getting the black paint off mine and showing off the brass.

any tips on what will work best to remove the black paint, and getting the brass polished ?

thanks much.

leonard

Leonard, I can see where you're going with this.
Polished brass radiator tops are very nice but AFAIK they're painted black for a reason.
I've been led to believe the black is to aid heat dissipation, the same reason VW Bug engine tinware is painted black.

I worked for years on Air-cooled VWs and we had a number of guys had 'blinged' their engines up with chrome and consequently had overheat problems.
I'm not sure how it would be in a water cooled situation,hopefully someone will confirm my suspicions.
Just my 2cents.

the correct flat black paint is good for heat transfer [NOT the heavy gloss black many use] but not necessary, leaving the top tank unfinished makes no diff - I left mine brass when I first cleaned it up .... any solvent will take the paint off, use brasso or such to polish it up .... I don't keep it shiney, I let it "age gracefully" afterwards [like the driver ]

Bill

thanks for the info jock and squeeze...
im always thinking of stuff to mess with on my 57....
would hate to make it possibly run hot....
and not really sure if i will like it polished up either..
just want to see some different pics first...

leonard

Leonard, OK I'll 'fess up!
I polished the radiator top on my Vauxhall Cresta. sorry though, I don't have any pics of mine.

jock, do you have any websites of these type cars from Scotland ? it looks sort of like a fairlane.. cool

leonard

GM. did a lot of R&D on the Black verses others colors and they came up by using Black paint on the race engines that they ran cooler as the theory was the heat transfered a lot better coming off the hot engine. If you notice most of their engines are black that are built for high preformance.
62Blue
Don

HERE'S mine.

Wow Woody,that looks really nice.......dave

if taking the paint off the top tank makes yer truck run hot, you have problems - with a rad, the heat transfer happens in the fin area, residence time in the tank is minimal with the water pump sucking it thru, that's why HD rads have more cores rather than bigger tanks,

Woody, yer building a show truck you'll be afraid to even run!! wait'll ya see what happens to that brass after a few hours at 180*

Bilkl

Yea, I did that a couple years ago just to kill time while waiting on parts and it's been in a box ever since... it'll be interesting to see how much it's tarnished already.

Luckily, I like the look of tarnished brass

WOW. that looks really nice...
gonna make up my mind, but will post pics if i polish mine.
thanks for the info guys.

leonard

I don't want to get too OT Leonard,but here's a link to the Cresta Owners Club.
Have fun!

thanks jock, i always like checking out different automobiles.

leonard

I have a question. How does an engine or radiator know what color the paint is? (Maybe the same way a thermos knows when to keep something hot vs cold. It just knows.) I can understand that it may react differently painted vs not painted, but color? When the hood is down its dark and everything is black. I would guess that the reason the factory painted these parts at all is corrosion resistance (engine covers) and long term, consistent appearance (radiator). As far as the VW situation, maybe the chrome has adverse insulation properties, or they did more to the stock engine than adding bling. Is bling a word? My spell check rejected it!

I agree about the paint colour but radiator black is specifically formulated for the job.
I believe it has better heat transfer properties.

Re; the VW chrome versus paint argument, the chrome has too much reflection and bounces the heat straight back.
True a lot of VWs have had some performance increase which in turn generates more heat, the 'bling' just exacerbates the problem.
I used to find all too many VWs with essential tinware missing as well.
VW went to a lot of trouble to find out what works,and all the tinware serves a function.
Overheating an air-cooled engine stretches head studs,cooks bearings and cracks cylinders heads,all of which can be terminal.

A properly set up VW engine shouldn't make the characteristic clatter/chuffing most people associate with them.
That's usually due to head blow by and or a badly installed exhaust.

Carl - does a black car get hotter sitting in the sun than a white one? how does the car know what color it is?

I would "guess" that the factory employed known principles of thermodynamics to choose flat black - prolly even consulted some physicists in the process, or at least someone who understood black body heat transfer principles ..... interesting name that

as I mentioned above, the tank isn't where the primary heat transfer happens so it isn't too important, notice that modern rads even have plastic tanks - but the surface color of the fin/tube part does make a difference, and the surface texture as well, the very smooth surface of gloss black doesn't work nearly as well - in addition, the thickness of a gloss paint adds a measure of insulation

Bill