Thread: Replacement Radiator Suggestions Needed

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The suns not quite up yet, Roger knows me pretty well


Hi Tom, welcome to the forum. Mine is a 37 Dodge truck so the nose dimensions might not be the same. Like Roger said my old pictures are being held hostage by Photo bucket, but I still have the one with the original measurements so you can compare it to yours.

Z org rad by M Patterson, on Flickr


I agree that the custom aluminum radiators are on the pricy side so I ended up looking for alternatives too. I ended up using an aftermarket 65-66 V8 Mustang aluminum radiator. In my case the water outlets on the radiator were on the correct positions but it’s something you will want to consider when shopping for a radiator. I think the 6 cylinder mustang radiators are on opposite sides if it is an issue.

I will warn you up front this IS NOT a bolt in. There is a lot of trimming on the mounting flanges and some minor trimming on the bracing in the nose. I had to set the radiator in deeper than the factory radiator due to space issues. If you currently have a stock radiator in it and everything fits you might not have as much trimming to do.

That being said I would not even consider trying to fit this radiator into the nose with it on the car! I don’t know if removing the nose from your car is a show stopper or not.

Must Rad by M Patterson, on Flickr

After all the trimming and fitting I am very happy with the final fitment. Using the Mustang style radiator even let me use a metal reproduction Mustang fan shroud (with some minor trimming on the mounting flange).

I’m using a 2 row version of the radiator with two 1” tubes. Without getting in to a big discussion about it basically the 2 rows with the 1” tubes give more surface area for cooling than most of the 3 or 4 row aluminum radiators and my experience is they cool a bit better. The radiator has a built in transmission cooler which I would not be afraid to use with a TH350/TH400. I’m running a 46RH Torqueflight in mine which requires a bit more cooling and uses bigger cooler lines so I using an auxiliary transmission cooler in front of the radiator instead of the built in cooler.

My truck has a 180 degree thermostat in it and usually runs right at 180-190 degrees …….sitting idling in traffic it creeps up to about 200 degrees but has not gone above that.

The radiator is considerably shorter than the original. In my case that worked very well as it gave me a place to hang an overflow tank.

Hope this helps.


Just read mprevo post, I'm don;t know if I came across the radiator he used when I was looking or not, but it would be one well worth looking at if it fits the nose well. The thing is you really need to get good measurements of you original radiator/grill shell before you go shopping. A 1/4-1/2" difference may not sound like much, but it can make all the difference in whether the radiator fits or not.



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