Remember a couple of messages about "Cooling a Hot 260"??
It seems that my original oversight of relying on a gauge rather than
double checking the accuracy with a temperature probe was indeed the problem.
Thanks to Dick Barker as he did have a temp gauge lying around in his
garage that he was willing to part with along with a sending unit. I did
get the mechanical gauge out yesterday and installed the original gauge and
sending unit. However, the installation did not go as smoothly as I would
have liked......I blew the voltage stabilizer in the process......
The electric gauge I aquired had a dead short in it from the housing
accross the two terminals. (certainly not Dick's fault) Where I failed is
that I did not remove the terminals for inspection until AFTER I blew the
votage stabilizer!! Live and learn....should have taken the gauge apart
and inspected it.
The GREAT news is a budy of mine who does LBC restorations had a new
voltage stabilizer in his shop and was willing to take time from his Sunday
to run down and open up for me. He probably was a bit self serving in that
it gave him a real opportunity give me a well deserved ration of crap!!
Finally got out last evening for a test drive and everything works great!!
The temp hovers in the neighborhood of about 190-200. Don't know about
you, but that's right where I want it!! When compared to the actual intake
manifold temp, the new OS gauge reads about 5 degrees higher than the
manifold temp. I would imagine this to be expected as water temp is
probably around 5 degrees higher than the area near the sending unit.
Well, that confirms for me that the mechanical gauge I pulled outta there
did indeed read at least 20 degrees high. Almost as important, the
original gauge looks better and actually has a light in it which helps anal
retentive people like me who drive thier Tigers at night....
Hopefully, later on today I may have the time to take the car out for some
serious freeway and hilly driving to get a better handle on the temperature
issue. As it stands now, looks like I may not need to go to the four core
radiator :-)
A side note......Chris Nichols who has done a lot or modification to the
Tiger he has had for twenty plus years also made a recomendation regarding
heat.....he pointed out that there are indeed TWO types of water pumps you
can get (news to me) He said that if you ask for it, they also make high
pressure/output "Competition" water pumps that move a great deal more
volume. You all probably already have this one dialed in....but for the
sake of those who don't: The impeller on the comp version is apparently
very trick with much larger blades. Chris says that changing his water
pump made more of a difference in keeping his car cool than several custom
radiators he has tried. This seems to concur with several other friends
who seem to feel strongly that the older copper and brass radiators cool
much better than the new, super-zoomy aluminium competition radiators.
Thanks for everyone's advice and suggestions.....for now it looks like
going back to original stock parts cured my "percieved" heat problem!!
Regards,
Allan
B9472373
|