All Weekend to Change a Thermostat!

    When I go the car it did not have a thermostat in it. I suspect the little electric fan was not enough to keep it cool so it was left off. The mechanical fan seems to be doing a great job of cooling so it was time to put one back in it.

    I went with a 160°, mainly because that was all they had hanging on the shelf at the local parts place. 

Since I had to drain the water I decided it was a great time to clean up the front area of the engine. Mostly I couldn't stand that rusty water pump!  I wire brushed it and hit it with Rust Reformer, then paint. I had purchased a high temp silver but after holding the chrome pulley up to several options, I felt they looked best against black.

Also,. since moving the radiator forward, the hoses were on the verge of being too short and I don't really know how old they are. Picked up a set of new hoses and cut to fit.

The belt looked pretty good.

I taped off the timing cover and frame area and hit that with black as well. Then I taped off and painted the front of the block. I went with a Ford grey. The block was already a shade of grey so I wanted to keep it simple and blend in the front to the sides. I like the grey.

BEFORE

BEFORE

TIMING COVER AND FRAME DONE

BLOCK DONE

The only other thing I did was make braces for the radiator. It had been mounted using the thin sheet metal near the original mounting area and it had a lot of flex. I cut 4 strips to sandwich the thin metal. I also welded on a piece of angle iron to allow me to firm it up even more with a bolt or weld. I have not decided which route I will take on that. Topped it off by painting those metal flake blue.

INSIDE

Outside

The radiator got a new drain valve while I had it out too. The old one was slipping while trying to turn it and I had soldered it as a temporary fix.

Put it all back together ....

Those ugly exhaust manifolds! Grrrr

Back in business!