Dateline 01/09/2016 – Did lots of engine bay odds and ends
this weekend. The day started with
installation of the fan control unit. I
did opt to purchase a thermostatically controlled unit from the same company
that made the fan. I mounted it on the
firewall where I had the relay before.
It requires a probe be pushed into the fins of the radiator, on the
other side of the car! So it took a
little finagling to find a place that was close to the battery and still had
enough length to reach the correct spot on the radiator. Here is the installation of the probe:
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| Temperature probe (brass cylinder just to the left of fan shroud) installed on hot side of radiator |
To wire in the controller, I had to mount a 30 amp circuit breaker
(which I put beside the battery) along with wiring from the battery
controller. I also had to run a hot from
ignition and an override wire back into the car. This required making up some more wiring
harnesses and since I was in the same place as the windshield washer reservoir,
I went ahead and wired that up too.
The original instructions had the fan leads being spliced directly to the controller, but I didn’t like this idea because I would have to cut off the splices if I ever needed to remove the radiator. So I use a three prong waterproof connector that I purchased many years ago to give me easy disconnection.
The final effort in wiring was finishing off the wiring around the battery cutoff relay. I needed to purchase a battery cable that would go from the relay to the firewall pass-through stud, which I got from Amazon. The rest was wire wrapping and clean-up.
So, all I have left for wiring in the engine bay is
connecting the distributor and the fan controller to ignition hot, which will
happen inside the car. Honestly, I’m
glad to be done with wiring for a while!
My next project was fitting the radiator. One of the things I didn’t like about the
prior installation was the transmission cooling lines. They were in pretty bad shape, looking like
they have been used for a couple of different engine installations. So I purchased some steel tubing, a double
flare kit and a tubing bender and went to town. Here is a picture showing the tubing, the fan controller, the horn relay, and the windshield washer bottle.
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| Fan Controller and new radiator cooling tubing Note plug connecting wires from controller to fan |
Once I got the tubing bent, installation of the radiator was
easy. Just needed to screw in the top
bracket and it was done!
My last task of the day was to install the thermostat
housing and radiator hoses. I bought new
stainless steel bolts to hold in the housing, so it was an easy matter of
installing it. I put the radiator hoses
on, but I need to get a few hose clamps.
I also installed the radiator overflow from the filler cap to the
overflow tank. I do need to get some
more radiator overflow hose to go from the overflow tank to the ground.
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| Thermostat housing, upper radiator hose and overflow hose to overflow tank. |
So, what’s left?
Well outside of the elephant in the room, the exhaust headers, not
much. I have a little more strapping and
tidying to do, a few holes to plug and some wiring to complete inside the car,
but honestly, the engine bay is done!
Next week, I start the trunk!
