Engine Some cooling questions

AnthonyA1234

AnthonyA1234

Active Member
Aug 17, 2020
469
46
38
Florida
#1
Noticed that when I drive my foxbody with the ac on the car overheats. I figured I’d just put in a 180* mr gasket thermostat but I saw lmr has a sale on the sve radiators right now so I was going to get one of those too. Will adding these two things make my engine run too cool? I live in Florida so it’s always very hot.
 

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#3
You shouldn’t need the 180 thermostat the stock one is fine. The radiator should help. Also make sure the fins on your AC condenser are not all bent up restricting air to the radiator (very common). Another thing to look for is that all the air damns are in place. LMR sales replacements for them.
 
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#4
Dan02gt said:
You shouldn’t need the 180 thermostat the stock one is fine. The radiator should help. Also make sure the fins on your AC condenser are not all bent up restricting air to the radiator (very common). Another thing to look for is that all the air damns are in place. LMR sales replacements for them.
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Ok sounds good I’ll get the radiator then. My condenser is a little dented up but I don’t think it’d restrict that much flow. I’ll see what happens with the radiator and hopefully I don’t have to replace the condenser too. I’ll see if I can straighten out some of the dents with a pick or something.

So would it be harmful to put the 180* along with the radiator or do you just think I don’t need it? If I could run the thermostat safely I’d rather do that just to be on the cooler side.
 
#6
General karthief said:
A 180* thermostat likely will not lower the temp or help with overheating, unless there is a problem with the stat that's there now, are you reading the stock gauge or an aftermarket one?
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It’s the stock gauge. It’s always read right in the middle of normal but ever since I fixed the compressor and drive with the ac on now it reads just a tick before the red line at the top when the ac is on. I also replaced the coolant temp sender a few months ago so I know that’s not faulty.
 
#8
Do you have the stock clutch fan or electric fans? Define overheating? Stock gauge isn't necessarily accurate. Mine would read dead middle for approx. 200 deg. I changed my sender and now the same approx 200 deg is one line higher.

If you have one of those IR temp guns, shoot the driver side rad tank when you think you are overheating. If 210 or less, you have no issue.

If you can straighten the bent fins on the condenser that would help your A.C too.
 
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#9
What cooling fan is on it and is the black factory air damn still on the bottom of the bumper? Overheating is more airflow then coolant capacity so a new radiator is only needed if the old one is leaking or plugged up The stock clutch fan works fine if the clutch is good, most aftermarket electric fans are garbage, an oem junk yard fan is cheaper and works much better then the cheap China crap the aftermarket hawks as performance parts. The good old contour fan or even some of the newer brushless fans from say a charger or challenger work and fit well.
 
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#10
KRUISR said:
Do you have the stock clutch fan or electric fans? Define overheating? Stock gauge isn't necessarily accurate. Mine would read dead middle for approx. 200 deg. I changed my sender and now the same approx 200 deg is one line higher.

If you have one of those IR temp guns, shoot the driver side rad tank when you think you are overheating. If 210 or less, you have no issue.

If you can straighten the bent fins on the condenser that would help your A.C too.
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It’s the stock clutch fan and stock radiator from what I can tell.

The temp sender is new I recently changed it.

Ok I’ll try taking the temp with a laser gun and straightening the fins
 
#15
The fan should spin easily when engine is cold, air flow through the radiator makes the clutch react to temp.
the stock gauge is good but an aftermarket gauge with numbers is better, iirc the stock gauge only has a 150* number sweep so 25* is a lot of movement on it, not uncommon for the engine temp to rise 15-20* in traffic with the ac on. I mounted an aftermarket gauge just under the dash so I can peek at the numbers and compare that to where the stock gauge is reading, I was surprised at how far the stock needle moved with only a few degrees of engine temp changed.
I put the gauge under the dash at my left knee, they make a pillar gauge pod for aftermarket gauges but I'm cheap and had the little chrome gauge things already.
 
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#16
Have you diagnosed this as a bad radiator?? is your radiator in bad shape? cracked? Have you checked to see if the exterior fins are full of gunk? Had one like that once. blew out the gunk and it worked alot better when air could go through it. Is your fan shroud on? Is it in good shape? Really important part that needs to be installed for your cooling system to function well......
Good idea as said on here to check your fan clutch.....
Do you have an old school radiator shop around your place? If your radiator is in good shape ( and its the stock one) take it there and have them check it and flush it......
Don't spend money where its not needed.......
 
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#17
General karthief said:
The fan should spin easily when engine is cold, air flow through the radiator makes the clutch react to temp.
the stock gauge is good but an aftermarket gauge with numbers is better, iirc the stock gauge only has a 150* number sweep so 25* is a lot of movement on it, not uncommon for the engine temp to rise 15-20* in traffic with the ac on. I mounted an aftermarket gauge just under the dash so I can peek at the numbers and compare that to where the stock gauge is reading, I was surprised at how far the stock needle moved with only a few degrees of engine temp changed.
I put the gauge under the dash at my left knee, they make a pillar gauge pod for aftermarket gauges but I'm cheap and had the little chrome gauge things already.
Click to expand...
So I just tried spinning the fan. The car is off and is completely cold hasn’t started in a few days. The fan had some resistance on it. It wasn’t that hard to spin but it probably stopped itself after about 2.5 blades passed. Is this normal or is it bad?
 
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#19
General karthief said:
Pretty much normal.
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It’s gotta be the fan clutch like you guys said. Took it for another ride and it only overheats when I’m at a stop and the ac is on. If I start moving it starts to cool and the temp goes down. Then when I got home I did a test I saw on YouTube where I stuck a magazine in the fan and it stopped it. I also noticed that the fan spins a lot more weaker when the car is up to temp. I’ll change the clutch and see if that fixes it!
 
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#20
Don't stick anything in the fan while the engine is running.

With the engine off, grab the fan and try to spin it. Does it spin easy, or is there quite a bit of resistance? If it's spins easy or freewheels, it's bad. It should stop almost immediately when you spin it. It should feel like trying to spin a fan under water in terms of resistance felt
 
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