kris hines
Well-Known Member
So after being carless and poking a hole in my factory radiator I started looking around at the aftermarket offerings. Cold case was one brand that had not hear much about within the mopar community but doing some looking around I found a few reviews in a few different chevy forms. All the reviews I read were very good to excellent for cold case. So I decided to give them a try, so here is my install and thoughts on the cold case 22” A-Body radiator for a 68 barracuda with a 340.
The radiator arrived.
Very nice shine out of the box, if you are looking for a highly polished finish it wouldn’t take much work to get it out of this radiator. I prefer a brushed look so I will be going over it with a scotchbrite pad
A few more pics of the radiator next to the stock one.
Now for the installation.
Test fit showed the lower mounting holes were off approximately ¼ inch on both sides.
Trimmed up both sides as marked:
Trying to get the radiator down low enough I knew I had to trim and reshape my lower radiator support. A closer inspection I found that some point in my cars life it had sustained a lower impact as the upper support brace only had 1 bolt hole lined up as well as the brace from the lower support to the K member was bent.
If my car did not have this damage I am fairly confident that trimming the lower radiator mounting holes would have been the only modification I needed to make.
Installed:
Over all I am very happy with the quality and finish of this radiator. Joe and Eric at cold case were great to work with as well. I am still waiting for my electric fans to come in as well as get the fuel injection setup tuned in. So I have no real “performance” number to throw out. I did get the car started today for the first time, with 5 min of running with no fans my temp was at 180*. Will update this thread with the progress as I go. I have plenty more pics if anyone needs any.
The radiator arrived.
Very nice shine out of the box, if you are looking for a highly polished finish it wouldn’t take much work to get it out of this radiator. I prefer a brushed look so I will be going over it with a scotchbrite pad
A few more pics of the radiator next to the stock one.
Now for the installation.
Test fit showed the lower mounting holes were off approximately ¼ inch on both sides.
Trimmed up both sides as marked:
Trying to get the radiator down low enough I knew I had to trim and reshape my lower radiator support. A closer inspection I found that some point in my cars life it had sustained a lower impact as the upper support brace only had 1 bolt hole lined up as well as the brace from the lower support to the K member was bent.
If my car did not have this damage I am fairly confident that trimming the lower radiator mounting holes would have been the only modification I needed to make.
Installed:
Over all I am very happy with the quality and finish of this radiator. Joe and Eric at cold case were great to work with as well. I am still waiting for my electric fans to come in as well as get the fuel injection setup tuned in. So I have no real “performance” number to throw out. I did get the car started today for the first time, with 5 min of running with no fans my temp was at 180*. Will update this thread with the progress as I go. I have plenty more pics if anyone needs any.
