Pontiac Radiator Confusion

I have a question for you guys. I have a '71 Safari Wagon with the 455. I replaced the radiator (bought from Napa) and it is thicker than what came out. The new radiator is 2.5" thick, and according to all the parts house numbers' this is the right thickness of a car with air (without air is thinner). My dad has a '71 Catalina with a 400 and I have them side by side and his car has the thinner radiator (1" and some change). I'm not sure what is correct or what I should do. The fan shroud that I have won't reach far enough back to mount the radiator to the core support (the extra thickness of the new radiator is stopping it) and the top rubber mounts are too short (the bottoms ones fit fine).
Should I try to find a new fan shroud to fit this 2.5" radiator (I would think a bigger radiator would be better) or should I find a thinner radiator to match what seems to have come out of the car. I'm not sure which is original.
I'll add that I also intend to one day do some hauling with the car, so if it didn't come with a 2.5" but that was an option for heavy duty now might be a good time to upgrade since I already have the radiator, unless that would mean I would have to order all new water pumps, pulleys and fans. Were 2.5" available originally? Why do all the parts houses show this as the correct radiator when it clearly doesn't fit and it's not what my father has in his car (he sold the car new in '71 as a dealer and bought it back from the person who bought it, so we know for a fact the car is all original).



Brandon

 

I can't speak to the '71 specifically, but I do know that Pontiac did offer different radiators for the same year. My '67 had air and had a thicker radiator than what I was finding typically available if I remember correctly.

Personally I'd go with the thicker radiator and find a shroud. In '69 I know they had a long and a short water pump, but I didn't think that went up to '71.

I'll look in my Hollander and see if it has any more clues.

 

Okay Brandon first off here at Napa we never make mistakes...

First thing I did after reading this was look up your car and radiator in my computer, they do show two options. 1) Part no. 365 says with heavy duty cooling which is the 2 5/8" wide core 2) Part no. 302 says with standard cooling which has 1 3/4" inch wide core. My guess is the guys at your Napa gave you the larger radiator because it retails for $10.00 less then the thinner one. So technically you're getting more cooling for less money. If it's possible to fit the bigger radiator without too much trouble and altering, I would stick with it, but if it's going to cause big problems you might see if they can exchange it for the 302.

It seems a little odd that a wagon would not come factory with the larger radiator, but many times the assembly line installs what's available at the time.

 

Somehow I'd make the larger radiator fit. Shouldn't be too difficult.
Use the biggest hammer you have.

 

PS: Your Dads Catalina actually shows a third option radiator (2 heavy duty and one standard) the two heavy duty cooling are both 2 3/4" wide, and the standard being 1 3/4" just like yours (exact same part numbers for both cars by the way).

 

Thanks guys for the response, and the Napa numbers are very helpful. It appears then, from what you said, that my car (and my father's) came with the normal cooling radiator (not Heavy Duty). Since I may be towing with this wagon, I would like to stick with the Heavy Duty radiator.

From what I can see now the shroud won't fit (i'm going to keep playing with it, but it seems it's not thick enough to allow the thicker radiator. This leads me to believe that Pontiac must have offered a different fan shroud for the Heavy Duty radiators.

Brandon

 

That's very interesting Dewey. I suppose from what I've read so far I need to find a fan shroud that fit a HD radiator. My shroud is not thick enough to allow the radiator to fit inside it and still allow me to mount it to the core support. I'll try to post pictures later to clarify.

Brandon

 

Pics plz. I'd go with the big one. Look inside and count the rows, 4 row is the big one.

 

According to the description on the 365 it should be a 4 row.

 

Aren't there different rubber isolators. Small ones might not let the radiator sit right.

I mostly worked on gtos' but the shroud should work.

 

Now that you've got the HD radiator fitted and are having trouble with the shroud, it might be a good time to explore putting in a dual electric fan instead of the engine-driven fan. Less parasitic power loss on the engine, and from what I've read, fairly easy to hook up. (Never dome one myself, though.) Somebody here has though, I'm sure......

 

Not a bad thought. The Lincoln Mark IV fan is a single unit that is readily available at junk yards and on many forums is said to outperform the dual units. I've actually got a couple on a shelf just waiting. But one car isn't running and the other is running great. (Not going to mess with it till I have the backup running.)

 

The nice thing about the dual electric fans is they come already in a rectangular shroud and if you measure you can find one that fits the entire radiator surface.
Mine in the 55 Chevy Wagon is mounted on a cross flow Monte Carlo radiator and is two speed. Plus only one is on at cooler temps.
That is from no fan on at cool radiator-one on at medium temp-both on at hotter temp and both on HI when AC is on.

 

Thanks for the replies everyone. One problem with putting an electric fan in this car is that the shroud is actually what holds the radiator in this car, so the shroud is really what needs to mount up correctly. I do like the idea of electric fans and once I get everything finished and begin working on my goal of getting the most MPG out of this old wagon as possible I'll probably work on trying to make it happen, which will probably involve custom radiator mounts.

Here's the issue:


If you look next to the yellow sticker you can see that the radiator is bottoming out at the back of the shroud. It simply cannot slide, fit, squeeze or push any further back at all.



The shroud won't go back far enough to line the holes up to mount it because the radiator is keeping it from going back


I ended up cutting the shroud so it could mount in the further back position. I checked with the fan on and there is still room. I talked to another guy who did this a while back on his '71 and he said it was snug but it all fit, so this makes no sense to me at all.



I even tried it without the rubber inserts in to see if they were the problem, but it wouldn't fit that way either. The radiator is simply too deep for this shroud.

 

My for what it is worth on the electric fan issue is as teej stated, the Lincoln mark IV fan works great but here none to be had at junkyards because it is a popular thing to do with BB engines. I went through this in October with a BB car and make sure you are moving enough cfm's no matter what one you choose. I found for my application 3100 cfm worked sufficient. Anything less it would get hot. I can't remember but I found a dual fan set up from Summit for around $300. Also watch the AMP draw as each are different. I would just guess you are going to have to have at least 3000 cfm to keep it cool, I also made rubber flaps to direct the air thru the radiator as I felt too much air was passing around the radiator and not thru.
Not sure if this info will help you any just thought I would pass it along because I remember how frustrating it was for me to get this car to run cool. Good luck with it and keep us posted.

As I was posting I see you found a solution!