Tudor Overheating! HELP!!

DeBordEngineMan

DeBordEngineMan

Senior Member
Hello guys I know this is a repeated question here so hear it goes again. Just got everything done on the Tudor plus just put all new brakes on. I took out for a drive in 90 degree heat and she overheated. I am running an old radiator but it does not leak I took it to a radiator shop back in winter and had a few holes fixed and the neck fixed he would not rod it out thought it might leak more. I have drove the car short test drives maybe 1 to 3 miles with no problems I drove it about 8 miles and after about 4 to 5 miles started blowing water out thought it was just leveling out but this seemed not to be case. I had to add about a gallon of water when I got back home. It didn't seem to be that hot after inspection I did add one of the reproduction flying quails and the gasket seems not be thick enough got a replacement and it was the same seems to me the gasket is to thin the quail will turn going down road. Maybe I need to flush the radiator out first before buying a new one? anyway to test if plugged up? Now how do I flush it out and with what? Also timing is correct so that is not the problem either. any suggestions? Thanks Robert DeBord
 
2-1/2 gallons max. Timing needs to be spot on. Water flows unchecked, tubes are tight to the fins...can't over heat. "Says so in the book". Anything short of making steam is good enough if you are not loosing any more water after the initial blow down. Unless the brakes are hung up.

skip.
 
i changed my radiator cap seal to an oring much better than the square cut ones that come with it. i would bet you have a clogged radiator as long as you dont have hydrocarbons from a head or head gasket problem. get a thermal temp gun and check different areas of the rad when hot for blockage. another test i do is with the rad out i block off the lower neck with my hand and then fill the rad up. i then take my hand off the lower neck and look at the flow comming out how strong it is. this method takes a little knowledge of what a free flowing radiator should flow like.
 
Some people say that a flow test like Mitch//pa described is controlled by the outlet fitting and not by the openings in the tubes. I have no experience with this.
 
Ok, since I know a little about the background on this situation, allow me to start back from the beginning and offer my opinion(s). Retarded ignition timing can (and will) cause the engine to heat up. I advanced his ign. timing because it was really lazy but this engine has about ½"+ of rotational movement (slop) in the rotor at the tip. My guess is this equals to about 10-15 degrees of timing varience. Also the notch on the distributor body is worn severely allowing the entire body to move as the distributor plate is being pushed/pulled fully. I actually had him listen to the speed of the engine while I rotated the dist. body within the notched area. The difficulty I was having is, when the timing was adjusted at the dist. cam, after the engine was started, it would move unpredictably as the engine was running. Correcting this is now on his Bucket List of items as time & finances allow.

With regard to brakes, he has taken the time to completely go through the brakes and used Les' book as guidance. He has installed new cast iron drums and most of the internal parts are new including bonded Kevlar linings on the shoes. As we discussed some things on Saturday, if he were in a "do-over" situation he would match the length of the brake adjusting shafts and probably use the Brattons floaters. Also the reproduction Operating Pins would have have a drop of weld added to allow the brake shaft arms to be a little more advanced. While he replaced the Service Brake Cross-shaft bushings, his cross-shaft has been damaged at one time and a piece has been welded in the middle under the torque tube. I later got to thinking about whether the welder actually was able to re-index both arms on the ends to the same position where they pulled exactly the same.

Also, he had his new drums installed on his hubs and they were 'turned' afterwards, however the LF drum was still out of round. I don't know whether the machine shop did not true the hubs or whether they just missed the set up when they were truing them but when the tire was rotated with the shoes adjusted up, the shoes wanted to drag in one area. This meant I really could not adjust the shoe clearance up like it needed to be for full braking action. On the opposite side of the axle, the spindle bolt bushings were severely worn and the axle has a major bend in it but he is going to begin making repairs to all of these items.

While the car was here, we adjusted all of the brakes shoes and he drove it around the building a few times applying the brakes to "heat the drums". I then placed my finger on each of the drums and they were only slightly warm so I would tend to feel the problem is NOT with dragging brake shoes however, I did notice the car has reproduction brake return springs on the rods that do not have the tension set. He did install one of the aftermarket brake return springs that fits on the pedal itself however once the car was loaded back on the trailer, I noticed the brake light was still on and so I reached inside and pulled the brake pedal backwards. Maybe with the pedal not returning, while driving there is a slight amount of drag?

My suggestion before he goes any further is to immediately begin replacing the distributor shaft & bushings, and also replace the oil pump drive gear (--and bearing if needed) FIRST before anything else is done so you know the engine timing is correct. Then move on and see what you find with the cooling system.

.
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys for the info seems like everytime that I think that I am done with the car there is another problem that comes up with it I am getting so fed up with this I am just about ready to call it quits! Brent thanks for the help Saturday and for your time I do get tired of things going wrong I thought that I had it licked after I spent around 1000.00 for brakes now these new problems I just don't know if I want to continue on with it.
 
DeBordEngineMan said:
Thanks guys for the info seems like everytime that I think that I am done with the car there is another problem that comes up with it I am getting so fed up with this I am just about ready to call it quits! Brent thanks for the help Saturday and for your time I do get tired of things going wrong I thought that I had it licked after I spent around 1000.00 for brakes now these new problems I just don't know if I want to continue on with it.
Click to expand...

Hey man, don't give up as long as you can afford it.
This is a "tinkerer's" hobby.
Tinkering is half the fun...Smooching with the wife in the back seat is 45% and the
other 5% is driving it.
 
ok hang on, step back and take a deep breath, part of the enjoyment of these old cars is figuring out how to keep them running, after all any one can own a new car with out any personality, it seems that you have most of the problems fixed so dont throw away all your time and money by quiting now, my guess is its the radiator thats plugged, a rad will over heat the longer and farther you drive it, no chemicals on the market will unplug a plugged rad, save your money, take the rad to the shop and tell him to rod it out, if it is so bad he cant then get a new one, you will love that car when its all straightened out, go to bed and sleep on it before you make a decision, if you feel the same way in the morning , then ok, never make a serious decesion when your upset, just fix it and enjoy the looks and admiration you will get when you drive down town
 
Don't give up yet.

Many years ago (1976), I sold my 1933 Chev. because it had "yet another problem !". I sold it for $1200 as I payed $600 for it.

Still kicking myself.....

Marc
 
Old radiators will eventually loose the bond between the tubes and fins. If there is not a good bond there, the radiator will loose a lot of its effecency and no amount of rodding or flushing will make things better. It may be time to have the old radiator re-cored or a new radiator. The new high effeciency cores really work well.

My opinion,

Chris
 
I also have a very similar heating problem that I just figured out. Timing, breaks, and all the other usual suspects were OK. The previous owner said that the radiator had been cleaned out, repaired, and tested by a good radiator shop. I don't know if they rodded it out, but it looked clean and passed the flow test with flying colors.

Today I took it for a test drive with a dual channel lab thermometer connected to both the inlet and outlet of the radiator. 80 degree day. Although I believe in thermostats, it didn't have one for the test. It warmed up very quickly. As it was warming up, the outlet temp was running only 5 to 10 degrees lower than the inlet temp. It stabilized with the water going into the top of the radiator at 205 and the water coming out the bottom at 195. Only 10 degree drop through the entire radiator top to bottom. Pretty hard to cool an engine down to 160 or 180 when you are feeding it with 195 degree water. A metal pipe would have done almost as well as that radiator. I then did a test on my Model T with a new Brassworks radiator. Running it at a fast idle, I used the infrared thermometer so I could check the temperature gradient top to bottom through the radiator. Once it warmed up, the temperature entering the radiator was 195. Exiting was 145. A 60 degree drop. Even more interesting, in measuring the temperature gradient top to bottom, the top inch lost 10 degrees, the next 1 1/2 inch lost 10 degrees, and so on down to 150 just below the middle, and not much more decrease below that. Makes sense, because the hotter the water, the greater the temp differential between the water and the air, and therefore the greater the heat transfer. So the new Brassworks radiator cooled as much in just the top inch as the entire old A radiator. That finally convinced me that (in my case) the radiator is the cause of the problem. So what was the problem with this relatively clean radiator? Here is what I think. I'm pretty sure it is loose fins. Initially, I checked them and they seemed tight, but in checking again more carefully I found that when trying to move them up or down they initially felt tight, but if I applied just a little more pressure, they would pop loose from the tube and reveal a ring of corrosion or maybe old crystallized deteriorated solder where the fin contacted the tube. basically insulating the tube from the fin. The radiator had been painted moderately heavily (which also didn't help) and it appears that the paint had glued the fins to the tubes disguising the fact that they were loose. Make sense? A friend had a similar experience. He had his radiator taken apart, rodded and cleaned and it still got hot. He put on a new radiator (from Macs). Problem solved. I'm ordering a new radiator tomorrow.

Bob
 
DeBordEngineMan said:
Thanks guys for the info seems like everytime that I think that I am done with the car there is another problem that comes up with it I am getting so fed up with this I am just about ready to call it quits! Brent thanks for the help Saturday and for your time I do get tired of things going wrong I thought that I had it licked after I spent around 1000.00 for brakes now these new problems I just don't know if I want to continue on with it.
Click to expand...

Robert, I too suggest you park it for awhile and play with your other toys until you feel better about the car. What you are experiencing is not something new, --and many people experience this same thing. THAT is why I have a job!! :D (Just so everyone knows, Robert is just a friend and is not, --nor will he likely ever be a customer of mine)

Just so everyone knows "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey says, last Saturday morning Robert & his wife trailered his car about 100 mile round trip for me to look it over with him. While I do not know the history on the car, it appears it was a well used car when he got it with plenty of "MacGuyvering" in its past. Robert has used his resources and a portion of his paycheck to make repairs on the car. I do not know the amount of time he has spent but it appears he has repainted it, installed a new interior, rebuilt the steering box, gone thru the brakes, and many other things. If you go back and look at the questions he has asked here on Fordbarn, one can see he has had many obstacles & hurdles to overcome, --and on a limited budget it seems. Many Fordbarn readers know 'all too well' how this is!!:( Now is the time for you "lurkers" to chime in, make a post and offer your support!!

Something that I suggested to him is for him to consider purchasing a '29 chassis and/or start finding subcomponents at swap meets/etc. and individually begin restoring each of those (not repairing --but restoring) items while he is still driving his Tudor as-is. A good example of why this is needed is his Tudor's rear end has a whine in it, and when we had it up on the lift, I could take each rear wheel and simultaneously turn both wheels about ¼ turn back & forth together. If he were to throroughly restore a replacement rear axle as time & funding allows, he can set it in the back and wait until he is ready to assemble a complete chassis, --or use it if his present one fails. The same needs to be done with his front axle. While he was here, we checked the front axle and determined it was bent on the right side in about the area of the spring perch. Also, the axle beam has worn places where in the past the spring eyes have rubbed. A replacement front axle and radius rod can be found and he can inexpensively restore it by rebuilding the ball back to 1.500" diameter, straighten the axle in a press, weld up any worn areas, and have it ready for assembly under a restored correct frame that has been straightened, had the rivets tightened. Like I explained, these are all items that he can get his money he has invested along the way back out of if he changes his mind but it allows him to keep his car intact and enjoy it as-is which builds enthusiasm towards wanting to do the sub-component restoration tasks.

One other piece of advice I gave him was he mentioned he had borrowed the truck & trailer he brought the car over on, and that he would need to buy another trailer and maybe a truck too so he could take it to Model A events. I suggested that he consider re-directing the money he would need to spend on buying a truck & trailer into having a reliable "touring" engine built. That way, he and his wife can drive his Model A comfortably at 50-55 mph to these shows and tours when he installs his body and sheetmetal on his thoroughly restored replacement chassis.

.
 
Not saying these things are the end-all be-all, but this is the process I used to figure out why our Coupe kept overheating ('31 Coupe with a rebuilt engine.)

  • Radiator shop flushed, boiled and painted the radiator (which I later found out was a AA radiator.) $175 - they could rod the radiator, but the cost was going to be too high for my budget and they suggested that if they were going to remove a tank, a new core would be a better option - WAY out of my budget at the time.
  • Worked the timing issues second - the bushings in my distributor were SHOT, so I rebuilt the distributor. I also rebuilt a spare. It's 'cheap insurance'. I also replaced the distributor body and found that I was not able to get a full retard. Rotated the steering column a bit to gain the extra rotation. $200 for parts

  • Then the fuel mixture - is the manifold gasket leaking, or the vacuum wiper, or the vacuum line, or the carb gasket? Float level, jets, etc. etc. etc. Resurfaced the manifold (both bolted together) and took care of the manifold leak. Copper carb gaskets seem to work best (for me) and then there was the float - which had a pinhole leak. I rebuilt the Zenith and my Tillotson as well. The Zenith is my preferred carb. $350 +/- for parts and labor.
  • Then of course there is the head gasket. Check for hydrocarbons - the local auto parts store has a 'sniffer' and they helped me find a leaking head gasket. Re-torqued the head and that problem was solved.
  • Drove to French Lick and ended up taking 18 gallons of water to get there. Had to stop at every store along the way to stock up on water. It was MISERABLE. The cost of the water was nominal - the cost on my nerves was HUGE! Mileage suffered (got about 10 MPG the entire drive down - that cost was also BIG!)
  • Bought the bullet and purchased a re-cored radiator from Bergs and installed it in the repair tent. $475
The car was driven the entire week at French Lick (and it was HOT!). Drove from French Lick to Cincinnati, then from Cincinnati back home - drove over 800 miles. Never overheated once. Plus my mileage went up to 19 mpg.

So, all being said, I'd question the radiator. It's a pricey investment, but the cost of the radiator was less than the combination of all the other things I did, not to mention all the water I had to keep adding and the wear and tear on my nerves and the internals of that nice, new engine.

My bet - the radiator needs to be replaced.
 
Brent, your friend has made the same mistake a lot of new A owners make, they fix up the cosmedics first, paint, upholstery, new tires(which may be needed) instead of fixings the mechanics, a good looking paint job will not get you around the block, but a car with good running gear and motor will, my moto on all the cars i buy and repair is, make it run first, then the other stuff, if it runs you can enjoy the car while you prepare for the other things, ok im off my soap box, i hope he doesnt quit, he just doesnt know how much fun these cars are
 
DeBordEngineMan, don't get discouraged. I bought a 31 tudor sedan, restored late 80's w/615 miles since the restoration. Have done some little things, turn signals, fuel shut of, points, condenser, and driven it. 1600 mi on odometer now. I guess I got lucky, but am going to have to pull a wheel and ck brakes, I like you not looking forward to at as I have been out of work 19+ months and working on a budget. Would I get rid of it now, no.
Paul in CT
 
You said "....It didn't seem to be that hot after inspection ...." You also said "...the gasket is too thin and the quail will turn going down road..." you also claim you lost about a gallon of water in 8 miles with 4 miles of driving with water flowing out the quail cap.

From this infromation your car is not overheating but losing water out the qual cap. The quail should not be loose. Replace the cap or try doubling or making a new thicker gasket. You didn't say how fast you were driving but the faster you drive the faster the water piles up in the top tank and if the gasket is not working out it goes.....there is your problem.
 
DeBorged Man, one other quick check to see if the radiator is good if you dont have an infra red heat gun, start and run car a few miles, then stop with engine running and in nuetral, put your hand on the outside top of the rad fins, they should be hot, then put your hand on the bottom of the rad fins they should be fairly warm, if they are hot at the top and cool at the bottom the rad isnt circulating the water , if very hot at top and bottom then you have an engine problem , also i thought the quail had an allen set screw on the side of it that you could tighten to stop it from being unscrewed easily (collected by a model A fan)
 
Robert,
You've come this far with the car, don't give up now.

I've owned a 1931 SW Sedan since 1954. The Sedan has been in the family since 1933. We also, over the years owned and drove six other Model A Fords. Each car has its own quirks. It just takes some time to learn your car's personality.

There are times when working on a "A" that you'll want to throw a wrench through the windshield and walk away, never to return
Brent has given you a good review of your Sedan. Work on the items noted as time and $$$ allow. Once you get the initial overheating solved, and it sure sounds like the radiator, you'll be able to drive the car and have some fun. The more you learn its little quirks the more fun it will become.

Next on the list would be the distributor. They are easy to rebuild and a rebuilt distributor will make all the difference in the world on how the car runs.

As far as a trailer and truck to haul the car around seems to defeat the reason to have a "fun" driver. Trailers are for horses.

http://www.largescaleonline.com/eimages/lsolpics/Team_Member_Pics/jlsrails/100_6071.jpg

This is the sign I have on the Sedan. I (we) always drove the cars. If you can't drive it why own it?

Hang in there.
 
Last edited:
About your quail, SKIP ( maybe he will chime in again) was a great help to me when I first got my tudor. Was loosing water under the quail (a lot), There is a repair kit offered (gaskets and lugs), replaced those (especially the one UNDER the quail adapter) AND "formed" the o/flow tube to the rear, I also installed a t/stat (basically to slow down the water) and have had no leaks since and I drive on the i/state and other 4 lane h/ways around the capitol region w/out problems now, usually 45-48 in the right lane. Thinking abaout making a trek to sturbridge, ma for the meet. Good luck
Paul in CT
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top