Radiator question

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Thanks Bill, I took it to a Radiator shop they flushed it for me at no charge:) It had barely any flow. When I put it all back together and buttoned it up I went to put the radiator cap on and....that's not the radiator cap that's the thermostat. LOL needless to say. It is a 2 core radiator and the guy told me I should have a 3 core. or I can go with a fan shroud or just not have a thermostat in it. When I filled it this time I started at the intake instead of the radiator you could definitely hear it pushing the air out. Also I knew that when I drained it there seemed to be a lot less in it than it should have so when I filled it up again it took more to fill it up than what came out for sure. My guy has a heat gun which he is going to bring next time he comes and I am going to stick with the radiator I have for now. Its almost time to put her away for the winter I just want to be able to actually drive it for the first time before I do.
 
Whatever you do, run a thermostat. Anybody who tells you different needs to sit down and read up on cooling systems.

Yes, a 3 row is better than what you have. A fan shroud is a must for ALL cooling systems.
 
New information- I was so busy trying to record all the places to shoot the engine with my inferred gun I missed the following. So, let me back up a little. Before I purchased the 1965 Dart 6cyl 225 the person I bought the car from found it in a barn. He indicated he got the car running, however the engine would over heat. He swapped out engines and put in an engine from 1969. When I purchased the car I had the original engine rebuilt professionally. After installing the engine it would run hot by the gauge very hot. the engine seems to idle okay but at highway speeds the gauge almost pegs the gauge. Now I have always contended that the car never lost antifreeze however I am incorrect. Every time I've taken it out I have had to add about a 1/2 quart of antifreeze so it must be blowing by the overflow and since there isn't an overflow bypass container I didn't realize it lost antifreeze. The car must be getting so hot it is boiling out and since I never saw steam or such and the infrequent driving of the car I didn't notice it was losing antifreeze. So this is what I have done so far:

radiator serviced- working fine
new water pump- put in an eight blade
new thermostat installed 160 degrees
new cap

is there anything I could have missed. I've received a lot of good advice but now that I realize I'm losing antifreeze I'm kind of thinking during the rebuilding process they might have missed something in cleaning the block and water jackets, is that possible. If so can I clean the block and water jackets without taking the engine out of the car? is there a flush system?
 
If you are filling it to the top of the radiator and don't have a recovery system on it pushing about a half a quart out is pretty much normal.
My car pushes out about that much when it gets good and warm, but recovers it from the tank when it cools down.

Water based coolants expand when hot so it has to go somewhere.
The recovery system won't solve your heating issues though, but it'll keep the radiator full instead of having an air pocket in the cooling system. (which like I said is normal for a non recovery type system)
 
Thank you this is driving me crazy. I'll see if I can install some kind of recovery system.
 
Thank you this is driving me crazy. I'll see if I can install some kind of recovery system.

A very basic but functional system can be done just by having a hose off the overflow nipple on the radiator go into a container so that when the vacuum in the cooling system increases it can pull coolant back into the radiator.
It also requires a recovery style cap with the spring loaded valve in it like this.
 

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