[Healeys] push rods too long

Austin Healey pajtamuvek at gmail.com
Fri Aug 10 04:12:29 MDT 2012


"The only advantage of a thermo fan is when you stop. And I have a fix for
that. You restart the engine for a minute or so, to move the water."

Or put in a small electic water pump and keep the water moving after engine
is switched off. It can be thermo controlled.

2012/8/10 Chris Dimmock <austin.healey at gmail.com>

> Alan is 100% right.
> The number one overheating issue in 100's is over skimmed blocks and heads.
> The water galleries aren't vertical - they are angled. So every skim on
> either surface moves the head gallery further away from the block gallery.
> And skimming was the way to fit better/cheaper pistons and increase CR in
> the 50's and 60's.
> This was a well known issue 30 or more or so years ago, amoungst those who
> raced 100's. Probably less well known today.
> This is just another reason why plasticine and engineers blue are such
> important tools in an engineers rebuild toolkit.
> The number one issue in overheating 3000's is a tie. It's a tie between 2
> issues,  between 50 year old blocks which haven't been cleaned, and huge
> electric fans mounted on the "air" side of the radiator. Yep. Big electeic
> fan. You can run in a parade all day, but you'll boil on a freeway at
> 100mph in 20 minutes.
> And not cleaning your block. Punch out a welch plug. Can you see between
> the cylinders? No? How far below the welch plug can you stick a piece of
> wire?
> It all boils (pun intended) down to what you use your car for.
> Parade crawlers use huge big thermo fans ;-) (ducks empty thrown beer cans)
> The rest of us who can do both clean our blocks, use modern core
> technology in our radiators (with stock header tanks and frames) and use
> modern mechanical plastic fans (e.g. Denis welch - where the whole bigger
> pulley starts off by moving the fan mounting back 3/8 in or so from the rad)
> Flame away. I'll idle beside you for an hour in a parade, and I'll run in
> front of you for an hour in an Australian summer on a track at 100mph. My
> temp won't go over 185 - 190. My thermostat controls my engine temp.
> The only advantage of a thermo fan is when you stop. And I have a fix for
> that. You restart the engine for a minute or so, to move the water.
> A thermostat is the trade off for an engine running at the correct
> operating temp. It's archaic, but works.
> Best
> Chris
>
> On 10/08/2012, at 5:36 PM, Alan Seigrist <healey.nut at gmail.com>
> > Just keep in mind then you start decking the 100 motor too much, the
> > water ports don't line up properly and you can either get leaking or
> > reduced coolant flow as a result.


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