Ford’s Out and About

I was out at my local shopping centre, doing my groceries at the supermarkett when I spotted a nice station wagon down the hill at the bottom of the car park. Thought nothing of it for a more,nt but thI en noticed that the bonnet was up. I decided I would check him out after I had done my shopping.

So 20 minutes later, I am loading the groceries in the car and can see clearly that the station wagon has not moved. I decide to cruise on by on my way out and just check if I can help out. There is generally a good camaraderie amongst classic car owner,s and early Ford owners are no exception.

I pull up in front of the wagon and ask the guy if he needs a hand.
He replies, “If you have a water pump pull,ey then yes!”

“Well, I just might have one at home!” I reply

I promise to look once I have put the groceries away and come back and let him know, one way or the other.

To The Shed

I quickly put the groceries away and go down to the shed. Now I know it will be in one of the boxes – I check the lids and sure enough the second box I pick up is the one with a few cooling parts – pulleys, ho,ses and the like!

Yep, there i,t is one V8 pulley. I don’t use a V8 pulley on my ,beast as I will explain later.

You Are i,n Luck Mate

I roll up back in the car park and tell them the good news – one pulley!
We stick it on the water pump and all looks good – except it is just a few mm larger in diameter – the belt sits in the same d,iameter but the rim is wider. Wor,se still the rim is hitting the crank pulley!

Now I can’t believe the luck of this poor coup,le! First the pulley tore apart in the first place (there was no fan on it since they have electric fan cooling) – I have never seen that on a street machine! The,n secondly the replacement won’t fit because the engine re-builder has used a larger crank pulley (maybe).

I am not sure if the pulleys on the 289 and 302 are different but at this point it is no help to our situation. I have no more to offer but Dave thinks that maybe he can repair the old one enough to get home.

A Little Metal Work

He gets his tools out of t,he back and using a little galv,anised steel cuts a plate to sit over the old pulley. A few cuts and dril,l holes later the plate is nearly ready. Oops needs a larger hole in the middle to slip over the pulley ,shaft!
Luctoolboxave my tool box ifounde car and find a larger drill to finish the job!

Ok, now we can fit our repaired pulley and give it a shot.anPoor Dave ha,s ahe  injured hand so he can’t fit the pulley without pain, so Igavee it a go and eventually got it on and bolted – as good as new.
We fire up the engine, and all looks good!

The engine sits at idle with a gentle roar out the back! A stroker! Dave has recently had the motor rebuilt – the 289 was stroked out to 347C,I and I can hear a pretty wild rumble.

I always worry about the strokers since my engine guy claimed that the cylinder walls on the 289-302 are a little short in the skirts and prone to breaking if pushed too hard. Time will tell with this one. Another 60CI sounds mighty good to me!

Background

I have a chat with Dave about hicar’srs history. He had the body tidied up some time b,ack and it is largely in good condition. Just a little rustthein a door and the tailgate. However, they hope to have the tailgate repaired soon before it gets much worse.

The engine was totally rebuilt and stroked out like I explained above. It runs real nice but he has had overheating problems. Now this is a story I know all too well so I explain the design changes I had made to my cooling system to overcome the problem.

Overheating Early Falcons

I believe that the main problem is one of design in the water galleries in the heads and the exiting of air from the engine bay to give good flow-through in the radiator.
I changed my pulley size (6 cylinder pulley) down to get more revolutions on the water pump and better circulation in the heads at idle and low city speeds.
The V8 pulley is just too big for city traffic ,and cavitation is not really a problem even at freeway speeds.

I also added a nylon fan from an XF Falcon (fitted with an air-conditioner) – that’s a ten-blade fan with a great deal of air draw!

Trouble is, of cours,e a big fan sucks horsepower – the nylon is supposed to flex a bit when you accelera,te but it still draws more horsepower.

I remember many cruises over the years where the GTHOoverheatedted even on cool spring days as soon as thestartedrt dropping below a certain speed. There is little chance of driving one as a daily driver in Perth commuter traffic, that is for sure. Most of these guys picktheire days carefully when taking the HO out for a drive.

Go Electric

I have used electric fans before now, and they work well in winter and cruising on the open road. Around tow,n electric fans just don’t seem to keep up with cooling the water. This was Dave’s experience as well.

I have heard that 4, 10inch fans, in a good shroud can boost performance but I am not willing to trial this on my beast. Though I may try a mock up on my old radiator one day and just test the air flow rates. If I can find a manufacturer willing to let me trial 4 of his fans I might give it go!

I hit on the better balance by using the larger nylon fan on a viscous clutch arrangement. This took some investigation and a little lu,ck but it worked for a few years until the summer heat seemed to increase here in Perth.

Maybe I am driving more these d,ays and that’s the cause of the cooling challenge this last few summers.
Anyway, a change in the thermostat seemed to sort that last au,tumn and I will know for sure after I hit the full Perth heat waves this summer.

The next possibility is to add an electric water pump to supplement the circulation when sitting in heavy traffic at low engine speeds. I am trying to avoid that since I think that the KISS principle works best on old cars. Too many electrical gadgets mean more potential proble40-year-oldr old electrical systems don’t need extra work!