Parade/Over heating question

mystic122468

mystic122468

Member
Hey guys, I was asked to have the 28 in a Local Parade on the 3rd. I'm a little concerned about it over heating, I was told the parade lasts about an hour and a half and it's under 2 miles long. The car has been running good as far as Temp goes while normal driving. I'm thinking about adding a 6 volt fan but those things aren't cheep and i'd only be using it for the Parade.
Any thoughts? Should I be worried or are the odds good that it will be ok?

Thanks!

Jim
 
That works out to 1.33 mph, a slow walk speed. Too slow to travel without excessive clutch use. My issue with parades has never been overheating of the motor, but a very hot clutch and excessive throwout bearing wear. If a parade exceeds 30 minutes I can usually smell hot clutch. All that clutch riding also tortures the rear crank bearing thrust. Maybe it's just me. If a parade will go longer than 30 minutes I take a pass.
 
I have done many walking speed parades, for my car it works out to be idle speed and about 1/4 spark advance --I use spark advance for "fine" speed control , the car will go along without touching or slipping the clutch, even on 95+ days I havn't had any overheating problems, occasionaly there will be a little time it gets some surging, pop into neutral and rev it a few times and it is fine ---this is with a stock engine (except B cam)original fan, radiator and 3:78 ratio ---and the last few years a cracked ex manifold that spewed on the carb --yes you have to be ready for the clutch, but I have also walked beside the car.

You do need to have a smooth stable idle
I have tied the steering wheel and let the car run circles for 1-2 hours on it's own---and because I was told it wouldn't do it i had it run circles in 3rd for a while at idle

Take your car out and try it (not in 3rd), let it idle for a while, get it good and hot and see how slow you can get it without riding the clutch, how well it handles the heat, on my car the motormeter will get to the lower or middle of the clear circle after a hour or so--about 190 on a hot day
 
Kurt in NJ said:
I have done many walking speed parades, for my car it works out to be idle speed and about 1/4 spark advance --I use spark advance for "fine" speed control , the car will go along without touching or slipping the clutch, even on 95+ days I havn't had any overheating problems, occasionaly there will be a little time it gets some surging, pop into neutral and rev it a few times and it is fine ---this is with a stock engine (except B cam)original fan, radiator and 3:78 ratio ---and the last few years a cracked ex manifold that spewed on the carb --yes you have to be ready for the clutch, but I have also walked beside the car.

You do need to have a smooth stable idle
I have tied the steering wheel and let the car run circles for 1-2 hours on it's own---and because I was told it wouldn't do it i had it run circles in 3rd for a while at idle

Take your car out and try it (not in 3rd), let it idle for a while, get it good and hot and see how slow you can get it without riding the clutch, how well it handles the heat, on my car the motormeter will get to the lower or middle of the clear circle after a hour or so--about 190 on a hot day
Click to expand...


That's a good tip, I can take it out Saturday and experiment. Maybe I'll go and see the Parade route and see if it's flat or hilly, maybe with any luck it will be a slight down hill grade :-)

Jim
 
Good stuff, also note that you can run a 12v fan on 6v, it will run slower than it was intented, but I suspect that even slower, it will be more efficient than the stock fan since it is much closer to the radiator. You also could add a small 6v battery in the circuit to the fan, wire the second battery in series to your car battery so you get 12v. Since the fan is plastic, the housing is not grounded and it gets positive and negative feed through its feed wires only.
 
Most times I am more worried about ME being hot, I open the door -----another thing I have found on my car is there is more of a chance of getting gasoline fumes inside with the windshield fully open when parading---no problem at the notch
 
Most parades, we will drive our 28 Tudor and 41 Tudor. Several things we do, is minimize the use of the clutch, remove the air cleaners, make sure the fluids are at the right levels, and timed correctly.

I do disconnect the linkage from the rear carb to keep the flathead V8 from loading up and fouling out the spark plugs. I've driven both cars in parades with 90 plus weather, never have had an issue with overheating.

Our car club had 28 cars in the 4th of July parade, six of them were Model As. None of them overheated, but we had a Model T vapor lock, a 63 T-Bird, 54 and 62 Corvettes, and a 39 Chevy get hot and exit just prior to the end of the parade.
 
I drive mine in parades all the time. The last one I drove in was our Christmas Parade (bear in mind I am in the southern hemisphere so our summer then) which lasted 45 minutes never a problem with over heating but by the end of the parade my clutch leg wanted to fall off !
I say every year I will pass on it next year but never do -Still a lot of fun and I still get a buzz out of peoples reactions ! Karl
 
Thanks for all of the great tips guys! i'm looking forward to it, I think i'm going to go ahead and do the Parade. i'll do some testing between now and then, I have two weeks..

Jim
 
If it overheats just pull out of line and shut it off and watch the rest of the parade............................
Paul in CT
 
ive done lots of parades . slow / stop .... never even got above the thermostat (150) . radiator is the key . I use a 2 blade fan ........
 
I took the Huckster in a parade on July 4th. Had about 1000 lbs in the back, grand kids, their mothers and a few others. It lasted about 1 hour. I also was concerned about the clutch but what I did, was when the parade would stop, I would take it out of gear, let out the clutch and race the motor a bit. Had no problem at all except for TB from the old hard seat in the Huckster.
 
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