30 July - 1 August 2020

Radiator Flop, Roadside Win, and the Beginning of the End: All things, both good and bad, must come to an end eventually... But we're not done yet!

30 July 2020: My original plan for the day was to re-inspect my brake repair and install my fancy new Be Cool radiator and it's electric fans in an attempt to finally cure my 'almost but never completely' overheating issue. As a quick summary, I run at about 210-225 on the highway @ 80mph with the AC on. Although I do not have a shroud, which is making my around-town driving even more frightful, the fact that I am running that hot at highway speeds tells me that I need more total cooling capacity. My thermostat is only a few months old, so it is very unlikely that it is the culprit, and although it is possible that there could be a restriction in my block caused by buildup/contaminants, I have no way to test that theory and it is not something I can fix by myself. 

    All that being said, I brought the radiator and fan kit into my hotel room to begin prep for the install.

Please excuse the text, it appears that the only picture I took of my hotel room shenanigans was on SnapChat.

    After a day spent running around collecting brake parts, which involved curbside delivery at three different auto parts stores, and ambient temperatures that meant that I had to resort to turning off the car whenever I hit a red light, I was excited to install my new radiator! As I opened up the box and started to do an inventory of all the pieces, I realized that something very important was missing: the instruction manual. 

    Normally this wouldn't be much of an issue with a radiator as the installation is generally straight forward. But what worried me is that the Be Cool kit contained no less than 20+ bolts, nuts, and washers, and probably an equal amount of spacers. It wasn't as self-explanatory as I had hoped. So after searching online for installation instructions and coming up with nothing, I gave their tech line a call in an attempt to locate some instructions... No dice. Apparently the radiator should have came with a big installation instruction manual, but it was forgotten. And for some unknown (and not-well thought out) reason, the manuals are not available as PDFs, and the tech offered no solutions other than to try to explain to me the location/order of every bolt, nut, and washer over the phone. Well, as nice of an attempt as that was, it was just about useless in the grand scheme of things. A picture truly is worth a thousand words, so while starring at the product picture on their website as I talked to the tech, I was able to mount the electric fans and shroud correctly (to the best of my knowledge) to the radiator. The rest, I figured, should be simple. So after being assured several times that the radiator was designed to fit in the stock 24" radiator mounts, I hung up and finished prepping everything. The wiring harness was all laid out and I confirmed all the connection points, and tightened all the bolts on the fan shroud. I was ready to walk outside, pull the old one out, and drop the new one is as quickly as possible because I was (and still am) not sure what Marriott's policy on customers replacing radiators in their parking lots is... 

        By the time I got out there, it was getting dark; this on purpose in an attempt to conceal myself. I also made sure to park in a corner away from security cameras, and made sure I was next to a tall van that would conceal my tinkering. Sure, they still might see me, but I figured there wasn't much they would be able to do after I pulled the old radiator out anyway! 

    Since I've already done this job multiple times, and it's relatively easy anyway, the fan, fan, clutch and old radiator were removed in no time at all!

    I can also proudly say that this was the cleanest I've ever removed a radiator. I probably spilled no more than a cup of coolant (which I was able to mostly dry up with paper towels), which I'm considering an absolute win considering the car wasn't jacked up and I was doing this at night. 

    I then went about installing the original radiator brackets that had so quickly and helpfully been shipped to me by WCCC (Thanks again, Darrell!). They bolted right into the pre-drilled holes in the frame rails. 

    And no surprise, they installed easily with the supplied stock hardware. Now, this is the part of the story where all the WCCC guys stand around there computers and have their big "I told you so" moment.... The fancy aluminum Be Cool radiator that I had spent so much money on, and had spent all afternoon prepping for installation, was too wide for the stock brackets. The stock brackets, by the way, that all three Be Cool techs had assured me would fit. And it wasn't even close; even with the rubber isolators removed from the stock brackets, it was still easily a quarter of an inch too wide to fit into the brackets. And not only would it not fit in the stock brackets, but it also interfered with the bolts that held on my condenser when I tried to put it where the stock brackets should have held it. 

    At this point, I was extremely annoyed (to put it lightly). I hadn't bought a cheap Chinese knock-off radiator, I'd bought to super-expensive guaranteed to fit, American made one. I had called their tech line twice before ordering to ensure that it would drop right in. 

    Now, I know I don't have the instruction manual and it is entirely possible that there is something I am missing, but I just can't fathom how "It installs unmodified with the stock brackets in the stock location," which is what I was told all three times that I called, can possibly be misconstrued to mean anything other than what it seems to clearly mean. I will hold off on final judgement until I am holding the installation manual in my hands, but I would not buy one of these kits until you let me figure out if it fits or not. 

    So now it's 8:30pm, it's pouring rain, and I'm standing there with a radiator that isn't going to work half installed, and an old one that barely works lying on the ground surrounded by tools. Awesome. So with no other options, I was left to undo everything I had just done. I was able to get everything re-installed, then pack up all my stuff and move it into the car or back to my hotel room by 9:30, at which point I spent another hour trying to figure out what I possibly could be missing, but to no avail. Despite it's vast breadth and depth, the internet seemingly held no answers for me. If someone knows of anyone who has installed one of these in a 67-70 Mustang or Cougar, please let me know so I can ask them some questions. 

31 July 2020: So, with the old radiator reinstalled and the new one once again riding in the backseat, I waved goodbye to Richmond and starting making my way to Allentown, PA. The ride was going well until, at around 11:00, it started to rain. No worries, I thought to myself, I'll just turn on the wipers and carry on. 

*click*

no wipers

*click off, click on*

still no wipers

*frantically clicks off, then on*

dammit

    My wipers decided not to work. And since my last coating of Rain-X was last fall, even the biggest drops weren't in any rush to make their way off my windshield. As the rain continued to fall harder and visibility got worse, I continued driving on the highway, committed to not wasting time sitting at a gas station while I waited for the storm to pass. But after about 15 minutes, and in a rare moment of clarity, I realized that what I was doing was just stupid. I wasn't in a rush, and it would have be idiotic to continue on like that and possibly wreck my car because I was too stupid and stubborn to pull over.

    Pulling into the next gas station, I popped the hood to see if there was anything obviously wrong. Not seeing anything at first glance, I stuck my head under the dash and took a look at the switch. Everything seemed fine, with no loose connectors or burned wiring, but I jiggled it all around just in case. Unfortunately, that didn't magically bring my wipers back... bummer.

    So I took another look under the hood, and that's when I saw it: the 4-pin wiper power connector was completely unplugged! It must have happened while I was messing around near the master cylinder when I lost my brakes and I just hadn't noticed it until now! So I plugged it back in, and BOOM, wipers! And not only did I get my wipers back, but now they had 100% functionality! See, before reconnecting those wires, I only had high-speed on my wipers and they would not return to the down position when I turned them off. But now I had low speed, high speed, and auto-return, which tells me that the connector must have been loose for some time. 

    Glad that it was an easy fix, I rejoined the highway and continued powering on. About 2 hours later I hit a construction zone with traffic moving about 10mph, which was odd considering I could see no workers or even construction vehicles. About 10 minutes in I saw the issue. An early 2000s Jeep Grand Cherokee had blown out its front tire in spectacular fashion, and was limping along the right lane unable to pull off the road since the construction crews had erected concrete barriers on both sides of the road, removing access to the shoulder. Seeing vehicles occupants were an elderly couple, I figured that they could probably use some help installing the spare, so after I passed them, I pulled over once the barrier ended and waited for them to arrive. When they eventually did, it became obvious that they would have needed a tow truck if someone with a bunch of tools hadn't pulled over. First, the lug nuts had obviously been tightened down by a lazy mechanic with a heavy-duty impact wrench because they were tight enough to break the Jeep's toolkit lug nut wrench when the owner tried to loosen the nuts. Even with my socket and ratchet I had to resort to kicking the wrench to break the lug nuts free. Then, as I removed their spare tire, I noticed that it was soft to the touch. When I screwed my battery powered compressor on to it, it read only 3PSI. Luckily, once filled, it seemed to hold air well enough to at least get them to the nearest tire shop for some new tires. 

    I know we all always say it to other people, but make sure to check your own spare tire and torque your lugs nuts to SPEC! 

    Here's a picture out my back window as we both got ready to pull back onto the highway! 

Pictured in Bottom Left: Uninstalled Headache Radiator

    So due to the impromptu tire change, I continued my streak of showing up to my hotel in desperate need of a shower and change of clothes. At least it was just a rest and recover night!

1 August 2020: Nothing super interesting happened. I slept in, walked around, and got a COVID test from the local urgent care. Unfortunately, they told me that the results would take 2-7 days, not the 2-3 hours I had experienced with my last test. Well, that wasn't going to work for my purposes, as I was planning to roll into my family vacation on 02 August... MTF on that one. Other than that, it was just more recovery and research on my radiator woes and comparing my rear disk options between Mustang Steve's bracket kit that let you use modern Mustang brakes, or Street Or Track's more bespoke options. Shaun's stuff sure it pretty!

    The trip is going to be slowing down now, with no real travel or Cougar adventures planned for the next week, but there might be a few photo-ops coming up! I'll also be going over my system in the car for doing long solo drives, and try to hit on a few takeaways and lessons learned from this trip. 

Let me know if you have any questions you want me to answer!

Thanks for Following Along!

Ken