Herman's Factory Five Racing 65' Roadster Build Site

May 2007

5/10/2007 - Over the past few weeks I've been able to work on remounting the radiator using some left over 1/4" weather stripping as a means to help cusion the radiator on the frame and support brace. I'm hoping this will resolve any harmonic issues that may have lead to the failure of the first radiator.

Today, I had to wait around the house for the telephone technician since all of the lines went dead. If you know phone companies, they say they'll be here from 8-12 or 12-5. In my case, my wife was told 8-12 but he did not arrive until about 1:00PM after I called at 12 Noon when he didn't appear.

During the first 4 hours I was waiting, I decided to start working on monting the front aluminum pieces to box the radiator and promote air direction through the fins and tubes, rather than spliing over the sides, top and bottom of the radiator.

One thing I failed to do early on was to cut the "notches" or semi-circles for the front bump mounting hardware. Fortuantely, my hole saw was able to make short order of that.

The problem is, with the notches cut out, the panels moved about 1/4" further away from the center; my center/bottom panel was cut to fit before the notches were present so now there's a 1/4" gap minimum on both sides as you can see in the picture:

I still have plenty of aluminum left so it's back to making a template, cutting, etc. I did note that the lip of the Ron Davis radiator is somewhat thick and I may actually drill and tap holes into ths small strip and use SS screws to attach the rear-most portion of the new lower panel. But I will only put bulb seal at the forward most edge and allow natural tension of the aluminum's angle to keep it firmly against the body and if it works out, it means I won't have to drill any holes in the body.

5/10/2007 - The past couple of weekends I've been dealing with another leak, however, this is not from the radiator but after a few false alarms on a possible head gasket issue, it turned out to simply be the lower radiator hose at the water pump. Had me going for awhile. With a couple hundred miles on the new radiator, so far, it's ok but it took about 1200 miles before it leaked last time so time will tell.

Today, I had a chance to address the lower nose aluminum and it is now finally mounted. I trimmed the edges better and more accurately this time it's a about as perfect a fit as I can get it. I decided to use screws on this assembly instead of rivets. I figured if I had to replace the radiator again, it'd be easier to unscrew the panel.

The panel is very snug against the body with the bulb seal in place. It's not the "prettiest" panel with some deep scratches and a raised "blob" but as I've always maintained, this wasn't to be a show car. Oddly, I think I over polished the panel and it's much shinier than the side panels.

I checked the screws behind the rim of the radiator and they only hit the fins, as expected. None of the tubes were touched. I did make a minor mistake on the far left hole; it was smack in the middle between the tank and edge of the rim. My bad. I drilled a hole next to it but I may fill the errant hole with some silver silicone of something else. Otherwise, I think I did an ok job.