Put a Champion 526 radiator in a 71 swinger?

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Ok Thank you 72bluNblu.

Mine did not leave the factory with a 26" rad support,figured some drilling would be the cure for that.
Ill grab something to shim the height on the rad up a bit when,I go to drill the support.

I was just wondering if there is any interference with the battery tray that I would need to modify the tray, or position the rad to the passenger side more then center it?
 
As I recall, with the battery tray in the car the radiator won't drop straight down in on install, but once it's lowered down to the right height it doesn't interfere. I had mine in my Duster when I still had the battery up front and I didn't do any cutting on the radiator mounts or the battery tray.

My car also left the factory with a 22" radiator, I used a stock 26" radiator to locate the mounting holes and tack welded a couple of nuts onto the radiator support like the factory did. None of that is really necessary though, you can just use a couple of shims to level the radiator and hold it up off the support while you drill some holes in the mounting ears and radiator shroud.
 
Todlich said:
Ok Thank you 72bluNblu.

Mine did not leave the factory with a 26" rad support,figured some drilling would be the cure for that.
Ill grab something to shim the height on the rad up a bit when,I go to drill the support.

I was just wondering if there is any interference with the battery tray that I would need to modify the tray, or position the rad to the passenger side more then center it?
Click to expand...

No modifications are necessary to the battery tray. Mine is also centered up and it was no sweat at all. I just drilled 4 new holes for the radiator after I blocked it up with one of those thicker style paint sicks (probably 1/4")

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Thanks Goldduster318 , the information you gave made it so much easier to do. I have a 72 Duster. It took all of the guess work out. I used the cc374 radiator which I got from Jegs for $209 with a price match from ebay, with the contour fans that I purchased from Ebay for $99. I had to buy the fan resistor separate, it is shown in the picture but didn't come with it, Rock Auto had the best price, $27 part# Dorman 902-219. I bought new fan connectors from a company called Clips and Fasteners part# 20852 $7 ea. Plus $5 shipping. The Digital Dakota controller is beautiful and works great. I followed your wiring,very easy! I did my fan mounting slightly different by cutting off the factory mounts and used aluminum angle and drilled holes in the side of the fan body. I love this setup! Quiet and functional. Thanks again.
 

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I am about to do this setup also with the Dakota controller and was wondering if the small red wire in golduster diagram marked 12v constant is supplying 12v constant to the relays or is it tied in somewhere else and supplying both the relays and the controller with 12v constant because I see a 12v key on wire but don't see where the 12v constant comes from also could the small red on the relay be powered direct with fuse from starter relay
thanks
 
Hi, the 12 volt constant does supply both the relays and the controller but the instructions for the controller tell you not to use the same 12 volt source as the fans. I actually ran a separate 10 ga. wire from the battery to run my fans and pulled the 12 v constant from my fuse box. I hope this helps. If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask. Dave
 
for the sender wire to the controller can I just tap in to my gauge sending unit or does it need to be a separate unit
 
With the factory gauge, you probably need a separate sender. My car has an autometer and there is a calibration to use that sender so mine is shared.
 
I run two senders on mine, I have a smaller autometer gauge so I have actual numbers listed for my temperature. The Dakota digital controller is tapped into that, but I also run a stock sender so my stock gauge works as well.

There's enough preset options in the controller that you could probably tie it into the stock sender and have it be pretty close with a little experimentation, but it would be easier to tie it into the autometer sender. I will say that the digital controller is more accurate than the autometer gauge. The sender works fine, but the gauge itself has a calibration issue. It starts out being fairly accurate, but as the temperature increases the gauge gets further and further off. Not a HUGE discrepancy, but its almost 10* at 200. But it is just one of the cheap gauge pod pieces.
 
.............how about that upper radiator hose # :D

72bluNblu said:
I run two senders on mine, I have a smaller autometer gauge so I have actual numbers listed for my temperature. The Dakota digital controller is tapped into that, but I also run a stock sender so my stock gauge works as well.

There's enough preset options in the controller that you could probably tie it into the stock sender and have it be pretty close with a little experimentation, but it would be easier to tie it into the autometer sender. I will say that the digital controller is more accurate than the autometer gauge. The sender works fine, but the gauge itself has a calibration issue. It starts out being fairly accurate, but as the temperature increases the gauge gets further and further off. Not a HUGE discrepancy, but its almost 10* at 200. But it is just one of the cheap gauge pod pieces.
Click to expand...
 
Well I am starting to do this install. The aluminum strips I bought as specified in the instructions are 1/8 x 1". But they honestly look too narrow to me. What do you all think?
I see where one man used a piece of angle and drilled the fasteners into the side of the fan housing.
I have the fans centered side to side on the radiator. The fans are contacting the radiator fins, not sitting on the mounting tabs. when the aluminum strips are in place the fan is still contacting the fins. There is a sizable gap between the radiator bracket/aluminum strips and the tabs to mount the fan.
Should the aluminum strip be thicker and wider?
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I used 2" x 1/8" for mine, and I used spacers between the mounting plate and the bracket on the fan. I wouldn't go thicker than 1/8" just because you don't need the added strength, but you may need a spacer for the bracket. You can see mine in the bottom corner of the second picture

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Yes I did review your pics when I was preparing to do this. I kinda wish I had seen the pics before I had ordered the strips (ordered in 1/8 x 1" along with the wrong 24" radiator I just sent back, fortunately I had a 26" here for a 71 Demon project for my cousin), I would have gotten 2 x 1/8 as well. Oh well I will make it work. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious :)

Just picked up a 48" piece of 2'' x 1/8" on Ebay for $14 shipped

BTW, is your fan housing touching the cooling fins?

72bluNblu said:
I used 2" x 1/8" for mine, and I used spacers between the mounting plate and the bracket on the fan. I wouldn't go thicker than 1/8" just because you don't need the added strength, but you may need a spacer for the bracket. You can see mine in the bottom corner of the second picture

IMG_1558_zps3b79216a.jpg


IMG_1563_zpsdd343921.jpg
Click to expand...
 
rtee007 said:
Yes I did review your pics when I was preparing to do this. I kinda wish I had seen the pics before I had ordered the strips (ordered in 7/14 along with the wrong 24" radiator I just sent back, fortunately I had a 26" here for a 71 Demon project for my cousin), I would have gotten 2 x 1/8 as well. Oh well I will make it work. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious :)

Just picked up a 48" piece of 2'' x 1/8" on Ebay for $14 shipped

BTW, are your fans touching the cooling fins?
Click to expand...

The fans don't touch the fins, that would be bad. #-o

But, the fan shroud is supposed to touch the fins around the edge. You want the fans to pull air through the radiator, not in from around the shroud.

Basically, the picture above shows exactly what I did. I installed the mounting strips on the edge of the radiator first, then I laid the fan assembly/shroud right on top of the radiator. Once that was there I added the spacers in the gap between the tabs on the fan shroud and the mounting strips on the radiator so I wouldn't crush the radiator fins when I tightened the bolts down. The fan shroud stayed in the same spot though, laying flat on the radiator fins.
 
Hopefully, this will be of some benefit:

Not sure this is the best place to post this info, but everyone running AL radiators needs to be aware of the corrosion changes that take place when going from a brass to AL radiator. When a brass radiator is used with a cast iron engine, the iron in the engine is the sacrificial element in the electrolytic process that will occur between the different metals. When an AL radiator is used, the AL in the radiator becomes the sacrificial element in the electrolysis.

So use a good coolant (for the sake of the corrosion inhibitors), not just water, and change it every 2 year or so. In the old days, you could keep the coolant in for a long time. The inhibitors would wear out/fail, but the thickness of the iron castings would withstand that; you would just end up with a lot of muddy crud in the cooling system form the cast iron corrosion. With the thin AL radiator, you end up with holes in your radiator.

Isolating the AL radiator from the chassis with rubber or plastic supports will slow the electrolytic process by breaking any electrical current path through the radiator; new car AL radiators benefit from plastic tanks and isolated supported for this. But that is not often practical in retrofits.

BTW, there are anti-corrosion slugs (zinc I do believe) that cab be installed in the cooling system to provide a preferred sacrificial metal slug that will attract some of the corrosion action away from the AL rad.
 
I was under the impression that the 374 rad was altered a year or so ago and is now too tall to fit without hitting the hood on a duster? I thought people were modifying their core supports to make this rad work.
Can you just bolt this thing in without mods?
 
fishmarket said:
I was under the impression that the 374 rad was altered a year or so ago and is now too tall to fit without hitting the hood on a duster? I thought people were modifying their core supports to make this rad work.
Can you just bolt this thing in without mods?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure the radiator actually changed. I know I measured mine at one point for a comparison, and I don't think there was any difference. But I can't find the thread. I'll measure it again tomorrow and post the height.

There was a member here that had a Champion radiator that was stamped "374B" that had to modify his lower core support to get it to fit, but I haven't seen anyone else that's needed to do that, and there's quite a few people running the CC374 (although technically it's an E-body radiator).

Here's what I did:

I massaged the driver's corner of the lower radiator support with a dead blow hammer. I only did this because mine was actually damaged, it had a dent from hitting something. But I did do that, so maybe I added some clearance. Doubtful.

I used a couple of the nicer paint sticks (about 1/8" thick) and sat the radiator down onto it. Once I was happy with where the radiator was sitting, I drilled new holes in the mounting brackets on the radiator. I don't think anyone has been able to use the "factory" mounting holes on the Champion radiators. I had already added new mounts to my radiator shroud for a stock A-body 26" radiator, as my car came with a 22" radiator. So I just drilled new holes in the mounting brackets to match those.

And bolted it in. I left the 22" opening in my radiator shroud. I also had no hood clearance issues switching from the original '74 Duster hood to the '71 Dart hood that I run now as part of my Demon conversion.
 
72bluNblu said:
I'm not sure the radiator actually changed. I know I measured mine at one point for a comparison, and I don't think there was any difference. But I can't find the thread. I'll measure it again tomorrow and post the height.

There was a member here that had a Champion radiator that was stamped "374B" that had to modify his lower core support to get it to fit, but I haven't seen anyone else that's needed to do that, and there's quite a few people running the CC374 (although technically it's an E-body radiator).

Here's what I did:

I massaged the driver's corner of the lower radiator support with a dead blow hammer. I only did this because mine was actually damaged, it had a dent from hitting something. But I did do that, so maybe I added some clearance. Doubtful.

I used a couple of the nicer paint sticks (about 1/8" thick) and sat the radiator down onto it. Once I was happy with where the radiator was sitting, I drilled new holes in the mounting brackets on the radiator. I don't think anyone has been able to use the "factory" mounting holes on the Champion radiators. I had already added new mounts to my radiator shroud for a stock A-body 26" radiator, as my car came with a 22" radiator. So I just drilled new holes in the mounting brackets to match those.

And bolted it in. I left the 22" opening in my radiator shroud. I also had no hood clearance issues switching from the original '74 Duster hood to the '71 Dart hood that I run now as part of my Demon conversion.
Click to expand...

What alternator do you use?
 
mopowers said:
What alternator do you use?
Click to expand...

It's a TuffStuff 100 amp alternator.

roylerumble said:
Has anyone ever used the Painless Dual fan kit part number 30117?

http://www.painlessperformance.com/webcat/30117
Click to expand...

No, but it seems like a lot of money to not be able to change your activation and shut off temperatures.

I have more than that into my Dakota Digital controller and harness, even sourcing the fan harness from the local yard. I bought an extra 70 amp relay (for 2 total), a 60 amp maxi-fuse and the wiring for the controller. But, I can also program my fans to activate and shut off at any temperature I want, set the amount of time the fans will run AFTER I shut down the car (with a built in battery protection setting), set controls for both the high and low speeds of my fans, and change the activation/shut off temps with the push of a button. Which means I can change the activation temperatures for different weather conditions, if I go to the track, etc.

I probably have $180 into my controller, harness, relays and fuses, but the extra functionality is more than worth it.
 
72bluNblu said:
There was a member here that had a Champion radiator that was stamped "374B" that had to modify his lower core support to get it to fit, but I haven't seen anyone else that's needed to do that, and there's quite a few people running the CC374 (although technically it's an E-body radiator).

Here's what I did:

I massaged the driver's corner of the lower radiator support with a dead blow hammer. I only did this because mine was actually damaged, it had a dent from hitting something. But I did do that, so maybe I added some clearance. Doubtful.
Click to expand...

Ditto dead blow to driver's side where it squares up. Some more where it was dented. Paint stick. 4 new holes. 71 swinger. Looked way to tall to clear. Put hood on. put clay on radiator cap. Have 1/2" clearance to hood. I ordered the 374 and received one stamped CC374B. I did not record the difference, but it was taller than advertised by about an inch with the cap on. I gained 1/2 an inch back with the dead blow hammer. Hope this is helpful.
 
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