Put a Champion 526 radiator in a 71 swinger?
I was under the impression that the 374 rad was altered a year or so ago and is now too tall to fit without hitting the hood on a duster? I thought people were modifying their core supports to make this rad work.
Can you just bolt this thing in without mods?
I'm not sure the radiator actually changed. I know I measured mine at one point for a comparison, and I don't think there was any difference. But I can't find the thread. I'll measure it again tomorrow and post the height.
There was a member here that had a Champion radiator that was stamped "374B" that had to modify his lower core support to get it to fit, but I haven't seen anyone else that's needed to do that, and there's quite a few people running the CC374 (although technically it's an E-body radiator).
Here's what I did:
I massaged the driver's corner of the lower radiator support with a dead blow hammer. I only did this because mine was actually damaged, it had a dent from hitting something. But I did do that, so maybe I added some clearance. Doubtful.
I used a couple of the nicer paint sticks (about 1/8" thick) and sat the radiator down onto it. Once I was happy with where the radiator was sitting, I drilled new holes in the mounting brackets on the radiator. I don't think
anyone has been able to use the "factory" mounting holes on the Champion radiators. I had already added new mounts to my radiator shroud for a stock A-body 26" radiator, as my car came with a 22" radiator. So I just drilled new holes in the mounting brackets to match those.
And bolted it in. I left the 22" opening in my radiator shroud. I also had no hood clearance issues switching from the original '74 Duster hood to the '71 Dart hood that I run now as part of my Demon conversion.
