The original radiator in my car had several issues, ranging from rust bloom, to a leaking tank, to a broken water inlet, to having been painted twice by a previous owner or two...
Searching high and low revealed that the only factory replacement-style radiators were going to run roughly $400-500.
Summit Racing listed a universal 2-row aluminum radiator that was just the slightest bit smaller than our factory radiators, and was available with a built-in tranny cooler for my automatic transmission.
Summit Part Number SUM-381424 is all of about an inch narrower than our stock radiators, and about the same height. It was $209.95 + handling.
I also ordered their universal bracket kit SUM-380100, but discovered it wasn't going to work very well for this car, so I'm saving it for a future project where I'm sure it'll come in handy (V8 swap into a 1977 German-import Capri).
The radiator physically fits very well, it's smaller than our factory pieces, but when resting against the brackets that hold the front valance in place, it's height is exactly even with the upper radiator support. This made fabricating upper and lower mounting brackets out of flat-aluminum quite simple.
There were a few issues with installing it:
The first problem I encountered was that the transmission cooler fittings on this radiator are on the driver's side, rather than on the bottom as the factory radiator had them. Some careful bending brought the ends of the original lines to that side of the car and up close to each of the fittings. I then installed barbed hose fittings into the radiator, cut the hard lines' ends off, and used transmission cooler hose to connect the lines to the radiator. This is an inelegant solution, and I'm not crazy about it, I'll be either running new hard lines routed appropriately for this radiator when I do the engine swap, or running braided lines instead.
My next obstacle to tackle was the radiator outlet at the bottom. Where as the factory radiator's outlet is straight, this one is larger and exits at an upward angle. The stock hose will not fit, and rubber flex hoses from the parts stores proved to be incapable of making the necessary bend without kinking. The solution was beautiful... Mr. Gasket G-Flex hoses. I purchased the 24" blue powdercoated kits, (part # 11010B) which were on sale from Summit for $5 each (no, that's not a typo, they were that price when I ordered them, and regularly retail for $62.95). These stainless steel hose kits were exactly what I needed, both for the upper and lower hoses. The lower hose made it's bend perfectly, clearing the power-steering belt, the sway bar, power steering hose, transmission lines, and fuel lines, all while connecting the water pump to the radiator. The only misfortune here was that the nice-looking hose clamp cover would not fit on the water pump due to the power steering pump bracket being in the way... I saved the cover though, as I'm replacing the accessory drive setup with the new engine (going serpentine, ditching power steering altogether).
All of those little problems tackled, two remained, and they were related...
My upper radiator hose had a radiator cap on it, and so did the radiator, both also had overflow tubes. The upper hose was also rubbing against the A/C accumulator(or reciever/drier, whichever Ford called this one) in a bad way. I replaced the two sections of hose and the filler between them with another of the G-Flex hose kits (I bought 4 of those suckers at that price, are you kidding?) It made the same bend as the factory hose while clearing the accumulator. On this side I had to use the included adaptors, which can be a little tricky, and I couldn't use the clamp cover on the thermostat housing either (same reason as water pump, accessory bracketry), but the fit was still nice, as was the overall appearance.
If your radiator goes out in your II, this universal is an easy enough replacement with a little fabricating skill and some additional pieces. While doing this swap I also switched over to a 16" electric fan; I'm not sure the factory flex fan would clear this radiator, as it is thicker than the factory piece by a good bit. I drove the car around a little tonight after flushing out the block and heater core and filling the cooling system, it didn't get nearly as hot as it did before the swap, and everything seems to be working as intended.
Searching high and low revealed that the only factory replacement-style radiators were going to run roughly $400-500.
Summit Racing listed a universal 2-row aluminum radiator that was just the slightest bit smaller than our factory radiators, and was available with a built-in tranny cooler for my automatic transmission.
Summit Part Number SUM-381424 is all of about an inch narrower than our stock radiators, and about the same height. It was $209.95 + handling.
I also ordered their universal bracket kit SUM-380100, but discovered it wasn't going to work very well for this car, so I'm saving it for a future project where I'm sure it'll come in handy (V8 swap into a 1977 German-import Capri).
The radiator physically fits very well, it's smaller than our factory pieces, but when resting against the brackets that hold the front valance in place, it's height is exactly even with the upper radiator support. This made fabricating upper and lower mounting brackets out of flat-aluminum quite simple.
There were a few issues with installing it:
The first problem I encountered was that the transmission cooler fittings on this radiator are on the driver's side, rather than on the bottom as the factory radiator had them. Some careful bending brought the ends of the original lines to that side of the car and up close to each of the fittings. I then installed barbed hose fittings into the radiator, cut the hard lines' ends off, and used transmission cooler hose to connect the lines to the radiator. This is an inelegant solution, and I'm not crazy about it, I'll be either running new hard lines routed appropriately for this radiator when I do the engine swap, or running braided lines instead.
My next obstacle to tackle was the radiator outlet at the bottom. Where as the factory radiator's outlet is straight, this one is larger and exits at an upward angle. The stock hose will not fit, and rubber flex hoses from the parts stores proved to be incapable of making the necessary bend without kinking. The solution was beautiful... Mr. Gasket G-Flex hoses. I purchased the 24" blue powdercoated kits, (part # 11010B) which were on sale from Summit for $5 each (no, that's not a typo, they were that price when I ordered them, and regularly retail for $62.95). These stainless steel hose kits were exactly what I needed, both for the upper and lower hoses. The lower hose made it's bend perfectly, clearing the power-steering belt, the sway bar, power steering hose, transmission lines, and fuel lines, all while connecting the water pump to the radiator. The only misfortune here was that the nice-looking hose clamp cover would not fit on the water pump due to the power steering pump bracket being in the way... I saved the cover though, as I'm replacing the accessory drive setup with the new engine (going serpentine, ditching power steering altogether).
All of those little problems tackled, two remained, and they were related...
My upper radiator hose had a radiator cap on it, and so did the radiator, both also had overflow tubes. The upper hose was also rubbing against the A/C accumulator(or reciever/drier, whichever Ford called this one) in a bad way. I replaced the two sections of hose and the filler between them with another of the G-Flex hose kits (I bought 4 of those suckers at that price, are you kidding?) It made the same bend as the factory hose while clearing the accumulator. On this side I had to use the included adaptors, which can be a little tricky, and I couldn't use the clamp cover on the thermostat housing either (same reason as water pump, accessory bracketry), but the fit was still nice, as was the overall appearance.
If your radiator goes out in your II, this universal is an easy enough replacement with a little fabricating skill and some additional pieces. While doing this swap I also switched over to a 16" electric fan; I'm not sure the factory flex fan would clear this radiator, as it is thicker than the factory piece by a good bit. I drove the car around a little tonight after flushing out the block and heater core and filling the cooling system, it didn't get nearly as hot as it did before the swap, and everything seems to be working as intended.
This was typed up a few years back when I installed this radiator into my '76. Since then, I've installed the same radiator into my '75 and done a much better job. Also, Mr. Gasket has discontinued the G-Flex hoses since I wrote this, but you can still find n.o.s. hoses on Ebay from a variety of vendors. When I installed it in my '75 I actually went with Gates' newest flex-hoses. I will post some pictures of the installation into my '75 when I take it back out in a few weeks to show how I improved on my original installation and provide updated part numbers on the hoses I'm using now.