When I first started to drive my T I noticed that when in alot of stop and go traffic she would over heat. So I thought put in a water pump and that would solve the problem. With the pump in it over heats more no than them. Am thinking of taking the pump back out. A couple of old area stock car drivers told me that they would have the same problem and said to restrict the flow of the water. They said most likely the pump is moving the water through the radiator to fast not giving the water a chance to cool. Any thoughts what direction I should take?

John,
Thanks for opening the monthly "Water Pump" can for worms. Yes, a pump will move hot coolant faster at idle causing it to heat, also at a steady rate of speed it will keep it too cool. Suggestion check the radiator, if you have a good radiator there's no reason it should overheat. Also is it overheating or just boiling over, 2 different beasts, boiling over means your overfilling the upper tank, coolant shouldn't be over an inch over the core when cold.

Alex

I never understood the theory of water going through the radiator too fast to get cool. Looks to me like if that were the case, it would be moving through the engine too fast to heat up.

Maybe the reason mine overheats at high speeds is the air is moving through the radiator too fast for it to heat up and take the heat out of the water inside?

The only time I have had any overheating/steaming/boiling of any auto was due to bad radiator and bad waterpump. (not including the times I forgot to check the fluid level ) :^

1978 Ford van, water pump, 1983 Olds Cutlass, radiator core (alum) clogged after 5 years, 1989 Jeep, water pump went out, 1996 Corvette, water pump went out and took the Opti-Spark distributor with it .

All overheating issues ride with the radiator or waterpump. Get rid of the waterpump on the Ford T, get a new or re-cored radiator for your Ford T....no more worries



Last re-core on my '24 touring lasted 20 years, then sprung a leak, I replaced this weeping one with a new Brassworks....good for another 20+ years with yearly service.

The water will cool at the same rate regardless of how fast the water travels through the raditor. However, if the radiator is clogged up, your water pump could cause the water to be pumped out the overflow at a faster rate! Most cases of overheating are caused by a problem with the radiator. The radiator being either full of rust and sediment or the tubes not making good heat exchange with the fins. The former can be cleaned by a good radiator shop, but the latter cannot be repaired. A new radiator or a new core is needed.

Other causes of overheating would be lean fuel mixture and retarded spark, or excessive friction caused by too tight bands, or brakes.

Try checking for fuel mixture, spark advance and tight bands or brakes first. Then try flushing out the radiator with radiator cleaner. If that doesn't work, take off the radiator and take it to a shop to be cleaned and repaired. and the last resort a new radiator. Be sure to flush out the head and block with high pressure water before installing the radiator.
Norm

Hi Alex I beleave it's over heating. I don't have a gasket for the radiator cap, so it will start spitting at the windshield on a normal run with out many stops, when i get back home and turn it off she really starts to boil off. yes I did figure it out not to fill it up to high. Am keeping it about what you said just over the main core so it's not showing Note: I did have the radiator flushed and flow tested before I installed the pump. I was talking to a guy yesterday at the Iola car show and he said to get rid of the over heating problem he had, he had to change the radiator out . he was under the impression that even flushing the radiator won't clean the inside enough to release the heat from the water.

John,A rubber O-ring is far better than the gasket! Bud.

Over time the radiator tubes become coated with minerals and corrosion. When this happens the radiator can't remove heat from the water because the water is insulated from the tubes.

Only fix is a new radiator.

T quote sdntk
"the tubes not making good heat exchange with the fins"

This situation, in my opinion, could be also be caused by the water traveling through the radiator, too fast. Just like ice, in a drink..... If you only pour your drink, over the ice, it wont be very cool. If you let your drink, soak in ice, it will be cold.

My question is, has anybody tried to slow down the flow, by putting a larger pulley on the water pump, thereby slowing down the water flow, and keeping the water in the radiator, longer?

Hi Royce, your almost word for word what the guy at Iola was saying . Would you remove the pump if you had a now radiator installed? John

Royce I ment new radiator not "now' radiator. John

I would remove the pump regardless of any other factor.

Royce, I guess I'll have to see how much is in the piggy bank . Thanks for the suggestions. John

Thunder, the water keeps getting circulated; it doesn't go through the radiator once. The faster it goes through the radiator the more frequently it goes through.

Slowing down the flow will reduce the rate of heat transfer from the coolant to the radiator and then to the air.

John, ignition timing may be causing your overheating. Insufficient advance causes overheating.

What type of ignition system?

How was timing set?

Where is the timing lever during driving?

I've never weighed in on the water pump/no water pump discussion before but do feel I need to post my experience so those who are still in doubt can have another viewpoint. When I got my '27 it had the original radiator with a water pump installed, still does. It has never in 42 years of service had a heating problem except a time or two going up a long pull with the wind behind me thus effectively cancelling out any cooling effect from the fan. I was aware that Henry did not install water pumps, they were an aftermarket item, but since I didn't have a heat problem my thinking was "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". I'm convinced that my original radiator is still good enough to run without the pump but I see no reason to change.
Gordon

Its a closed loop system. If the flow is zero then the heat source will make the water in the engine very hot while the water in the cooling device is cold. As you increase the flow - the temperature of both get closer to each other. At the other extreme from zero flow you have maximum flow and at that point the engine water and radiator water are the same temperature. The above is over simplified but basically correct. Since the only source of cooling is the radiator - how could a pump help if the radiator doesn't work as a heat exchanger??? I have always found that overheating has only 3 causes: Running with timing retarded, running with carb mixture too lean, running with an old radiator that has long ago ceased to function as a heat exchanger. A water pump is irrelevant to any of the 3.

I'm a pretty new T owner too and have recently learned a few things about overheating. I do have a new Brassworks radiator, and I knew that the timing should be as advanced as possible. I sometimes still pegged my moto meter and had to pull over and let her cool down a bit. My hood has no louvers so that makes things worse. I just discovered I was running the carb too lean. Just a bit too much can make a big difference between normal temps and a very hot engine.

John,
In 1915 Ford started putting louvers on the hood, so the horn could be heard, which was now under it, had nothing to do with cooling, didn't hurt, just wasn't the original purpose.

Alex

John, if the fins are not loose from the tubes and the core is not rotten a good radiator shop can rod out the tubes then flush and make it work. It's been my experience that flushing alone won't cure the problem. A good shop can look it over and tell you if it's worth the effort to try and fix and if needed can usually recore yours for less than a new one. Have fun, Keith B

thanks to ever one who drop a line or two on the question I brought up. Now I have some direction to go in to correct the over heating problem. I will post my results when I finally correct the problem.Thanks again guys I was really at a lose,as what to do next to correct my over heating. I'll start with the ez fix first[adjust carb., check timing etc.] then if all else fails I see about a new radiator or have the old one recored. and I'm taking off the pump! John

John:

One final caution is that if you have the radiator re-cored make absolutely certain that the shop knows and understands the importance of the geometry of the finished radiator. Modern car radiator mounting has a lot of leeway for crooked core or less than perfectly aligned tanks top and bottom but The T radiator must be absolutely flat, square, and have zero "twist" or you won't get the radiator cowling to fit nor the hood to then fit on the cowling. It is easy to get the core to not leak with a re-core job but if the shop gets things crooked you are in for a nightmare of fan clearance, hood alignment issues...etc. Look at the water inlet at the top of the radiator and how short the hose is to the water outlet on the head. You will NOT be able to move the radiator left or right to make the hood fit if the shop has the top tank OFF to the left or right or has it twisted. I would suggest you drive the car to the shop if possible and show the guy the issue so he understands what is important. All your money for the re-core and flushing will be for naught if the shop doesn't understand the issue and doesn't address it.

Another thought. Water will expand as it heats up. If you fill the rad to the overflow tube it WILL push water out. My T has a leak in the overflow tube so it drains the top tank but my A is happy about 1 1/2 quarts below the overflow tube. Runs cool and doesn't "piddle"

Bill

Tube and fin contact are the only way a radiator will cool. A water pump can cavitate and foam up the water so that it can not have contact with the tubes. The fan blows the heat away from the fins as well as the tubes. When the fins become loose the radiator no longer cools. De-liming the tubes is a good way to fix things and then use distilled water to avoid future lime build up. Add some water wetter and a little bit of rust inhibitor and then go have fun. A new core is sometimes the only way to go because the fins must make contact with the tubes. Water at high speed foams up and will not cool. and that is the name of that tune . . . . back in my hot rod days we used to take off half of the blades in the water pumps to stop foaming and cavitation at high speed.

If using a pump in the cooling system of any engine, then don't forget to install a thermostat. Then the engine gets a chance to reach operating temperature faster & there is a restriction against water moving "too fast"(if that ever is a real problem when the engine is hot?)

John,

You state, "At the other extreme from zero flow you have maximum flow and at that point the engine water and radiator water are the same temperature. The above is over simplified but basically correct."

I have to disagree. The engine would still be producing heat. The radiator would still be rejecting heat, (or radiating it). Why then would the water no longer be an effective vehicle to move said heat just because of its flow rate? If we take your statement to be true, that the "delta T" between the radiator and engine is zero, that means that there is no heat transfer taking place in the engine and in the radiator. The engine doesn't begin to melt down, nor does the radiator go cold. Therefore, heat transfer must be occuring. As long as the constant temperature you predict isn't 212F then what's wrong with this scenerio?

Imagine it like this. The water is a freight train that gets loaded with heat. At very slow train speeds, the train cars overflow with heat as the train is not moving fast enough to remove all the heat as fast as it's being loaded. At very high train speeds, the train cars are moving so fast that there's very little heat loaded in each train car but the frequency at which a train car passes is so great that it can easily keep up with the rate of loading, (which is a constant in this model).

So, if 10 freight cars move 1000 BTU's of heat each, or if 1000 freight cars move 10 BTU's each, what's the difference? The only possible problems are the freight cars getting overloaded, (akin to a slow flow rate and exceeding the ability of the coolant to take on any more heat energy without boiling), or the inability for the system to unload the freight cars fast enough, (akin to a faulty radiator).

That's a first. I've heard of the water analogy to explain electricity, but never the freight train analogy to explain heat transfer. I like it!

BTW, I never understood electrical very well and the water analogy never really helped me much either. Circuits was a prerequisit to Heat Transfer where i went to school. I struggled through two quarters of Circuits, regergitating what I had memorized, but never understanding it. When I got to Heat Transfer, I found the reason they required Circuits beforehand was that heat traveling through insulation is the equivalent of electricity flowing through some form of resistance, therefore Ohm's law applied. Finally, the light bulb came on. I made one of the only two A's in the class. I wish they had made Heat Transfer a prerequisit to Circuits. I might have made better grades in there had it been the other way around.

Jerry:

I simply stated that that with zero flow you get max engine temp and minimum radiator temp and at max flow they approach equality. Of course if you meant that I expect the engine to measure 209.0004 degrees and the radiator to also measure 209.004 then yes I oversimplified. I simply refute the idea that the cause of overheating has ever been that the water pump is moving the water through the radiator too fast since if that is true then all you have to do is put in a thermostat to cool it down - right? Overly complicated explanations don't help. If the radiator itself is boiling then how can a waterpump help?? Where is the extra cooling going to come from? Am I to believe that pumping more water from the engine is going to cool down a boiling radiator??

I had a different problem with overheating.
I had run my 26 for some time with no issues with overheating. Then it started. I purchased a new radiator core, and while I was waiting for it to get done I decided to put a Z head on the engine. Whe I pulled the old head, I the cooling ports were completely plugged with rust flakes, which I guess were from the cooling part of the engine. Several hours later I had it washed/vacumed/air blown out and now it runs nice and cool. It was plugged to the point that very little coolant would be able to flow.

What would Sach and Slip Do?

John,
I also had heating problems with our 13 touring. The radiator was replaced (New) with a flat tube core. Before having the block bored, I cleaned the block & head water jacket areas with phosphoric acid. Also used redline water wetter and 25% antifreeze mixed with drinking water.
After numerous years of heating problems, I finally installed a Texas T water pump. The engine then ran cool but I had problems keeping coolant from being pumped out the overflow when traveling at high speed (38-40 MPH). I then made a restrictor plate with a hole the size of a "quarter". The restrictor is placed between the water pump and block.....that solved the overflow problem and the engine still runs cool. Our T ran cool on the Canyon Lands III tour.....the only problem I had was a defective new OPTIMA battery that failed.
I agree that most Model T's normally do not require a water pump providing the radiator is good. However, "I was not smarter than a fifth grader and ended up using a water pump with restrictor to eliminate the heating problem.

Royce Patterson.....you may want to re-think moving to Tuscon Az. as most of the Model T's there are using water pumps. It was 107 degrees yesterday. Of course.....they may not be smarter than a 5th grader either.

Les,

I drive a Model T in two fourth of July parades in Dallas Texas every year with no water pump. Take a look at the weather in Dallas, it is normally just as hot as Tucson in July. No water pump needed.

Most 5th graders know way more than I do.

John,

You and I seem to agree then that it all comes down to radiator performance, (assuming all is well with the engine).

You may notice in my explanation I never mentioned a water pump nor did I suggest it's value, pro or con. If you thought the point of my post was to promote the use of water pumps then I misled you. I only addressed the matter of flow rates. My point was that excessive flow rate having a negative affect on cooling is "bunk", (Henry Ford word), and that it all comes down to radiator condition, (again, assuming all is well with the engine), or possibly a flow restriction.

In the case of a flow restriction in an otherwise sound cooling system, a water pump may actually help but would be a band-aid.

Jerry:

We agree totally. I do concede that if flow restriction is the issue and you can't figure out where it is coming from then a water pump may fix it but likely a "core support" left inside your head casting is the real problem.

I had a phone call this afternoon from a guy that was still overheating with new flat tube radiator - but - he was convinced it was a bad idea to enrich the mixture on his engine so he only nudged the mixture to a bit richer. I finally goaded him into at least trying it for a a short test run with the idea that it was harder on the motor to be boiling it all the time than to worry about whatever damage was going to be done by rich mixture which frankly I think is not likely. I had him back out the carb mixture until the engine misfired and then screw it back in just until engine smoothed out. He then then went for a ride - and then for an even longer ride - guess what?

Thunder,
The water pump could cause slow warm up of the engine unless you also use a thermostat, but after reaching a hot temperature, the water pump won't keep it cooler. Reason: "the water will be moving through the radiator too fast to cool" That may be true, but it will also be moving through the engine too fast to heat, so it is a wash. The way thermosyphon works, the hotter the water gets, the faster it will rise. And the faster it cools, the faster it will drop. Therefore, the hotter the engine runs the more water will circulate through the radiator. This assumes that the radiator is conducting the heat and is cooling the water, and that the radiator passages are open so the water can flow through. If the radiator is not cooling the water, the circulation will slow down because there will be less temperature difference between the engine and radaator.
Norm

I was running behind Royce in both parades and my 24 touring showed no signs of overheating. I am running a recored original radiator with 3 rows of flat tubes.

I get similar performance in my 27 coupe with a recored original radiator with two rows of flat tubes. Mind you these are "wide narrow" tubes. I was pleasantly surprised that this radiator performed so well and I had to eat a few choice words I said to the shop.

Last year I bought a nice low mileage brass T. It had the original round tube radiator and a water pump. I could not drive it the 6 mile round trip to downtown and back with out it boiling over. I removed the pump and could make about 1/2 a mile further down the road before the car boiled. (My very unscientific observation was that the car cooled slightly better without the pump). I broke down and bought a Brass Works flat tube radiator and now can drive on the hottest day with out the car being accused of being a Steam Car. The car sometimes rumbles a bit just after shutting it off but does not puke out any coolant. I run 50% antifreeze and Water Wetter additive.

Our 1926 Model T..is over heating while sitting in the garage . We had the engine running for about 25 minutes and it was VERY HOT. Nothing boiling over.. The engine temps were high, yet by the radiator cap and just below the hoses were cool. Seems Coolant was not flowing through the engine. It has No Water Pump. We loosened the hose under the radiator cap , coolant poured out. So that tells me, that the coolant was stored in the hose leading down to the engine, but non circulated into the engine. Any Ideas of what could be Wrong?

Check the cast water outlet at top of head to see if someone put a thermostat in there. If so,it may be stuck.

If it were an engine with a thermostat I'd say it wasn't doing it's job, in this case you may have rust or lime deposits (don't know the water where you are, in So. Cal. you can almost chew it) in the water jackets. You probably need to pull the head Or first remove the outlet, someone unbeknowst to you, before you got it may have installed a thermostat, which no longer works.

Alex.

Ladydee is a pal of mine from elsewhere on the net. I suggested she chime in here.
It's her dads car. He is loosing his sight and she is helping him get it on the road while he can still enjoy it. I didn't know until about an hour ago that her dad had a T. Here's some background.
They have had it a couple years. It was supposed to be a good running, road worthy, 26 when they bought it. It's been sitting for about 2 years since they got it. The water was part (Green) antifreeze when they drained it and went looking for this heating problem.
Please help out all you can Guys, it looks like she's going to end up being a Model T mechanic.

Thank you Dennis...!! I coulda swore I told ya bout that Model T...... After I learn to be a Mechanic..I have to learn to drive it...I had a few people tell me HOW hard they were to drive...and IVE been scared to death to try it.. SO, as of this day..Ive only sat behind the steering wheel."Vrromm , Vrooom" chuga lugga chug chug.. :o)
Thank you for everything!!!

Hey is it true that they are always Leaking OIL???

1. Clean the block. (flush)
2, Install a new radiator
3. Remove the water pump
4. Don't run it too lean
5. The faster you go, the farther down the spark lever should go. Learn how to use it.

I like this new? spell checker

"Hey is it true that they are always Leaking OIL???"

Yes. It's only how much oil that matters.
The first thing we need to do here is find out if there is a veteran T owner near you who can come over and show you the ropes. No amount of writing here can replace an hour or two of hands on instruction. What part of the country are you in? There might be a Model T club close by.

Alex. I would think that the addition of the louvers would have been more for cooling the engine and driver than for allowing the horn to be heard. Seems like if it were strictly for allowing the horn to be heard, that the louver openings would be pointing forward, instead of to the rear.

Before the addition of hood louvers, the fan would suck air through the radiator across the hot engine and with no place to go except down under the car (we all know hot air rises), the hot air would remain up under the hood keeping the engine hotter and also heating the firewall and flowing through the firewall and pedal openings, making the driver hotter too.

The addition of the louvers, with the openings pointing to the rear solved this problem by allowing the hot air to flow out of the engine compartment, thus cooling the engine with the continuous exchange of cooler air, as well as, keeping the driver from getting so hot by the retention of the hot air under the hood. Respectfully submitted. Jim Patrick.

The greater the temperature difference the faster heat will transfer. Better cooling thus faster cooling.

A water pump helps compensate for a malfunctioning system. It does however introduce another variable to the design which leads to all other kinds of speculation.

Vince M

Well I have found if you have a new flat tube rad and it still over heats you may have a cracked block, because it just happened to me.

I don't mean to doubt you or question that your block is cracked or that you're still overheating, but, I'm wondering how a cracked block is causing overheating. Unless you mean that the crack allows coolant to leak away? Where is the crack?

(I do understand how overheating can cause a cracked block.)

Would a honeycomb radiator cool any differently than a normal radiator? My car came with the honeycomb radiator and the waterpump. I would like to do without the water pump if possible.
Howard

Howard,

If in good condition honeycomb is fine probably, but due to design are more prone to clogs and thus, yes could cool differently than a straight tube rad. Plus honeycomb core is difficult if not impossible to clean unlike straight tube.

My car cooled differently with a honeycomb radiator, it was horrible. Maybe yours is o.k. but mine was junk. I also had a water pump on it when I bought it. After having the radiator recored it cooled fine. I never bothered to remove the pump. Maybe I don't need it, but I really don't care. Works good, doesn't leak, (much), so I leave well enough alone.

Try it without the pump, if it works good, leave it off.

Ours does NOT have a water pump..the Hoses that run down from the Radiator when loosened..Let out 1/2 a bucket of fluid. Still Puzzled about this..Im leaning towards Blockage that doesnt let if flow into the engine..

Take the top hose completely off, make sure there is nothing inside the hose flange on the radiator.
(maybe one of the guys has a picture of what a Model T thermostat looks like).
Take a flashlight, look down through the filler neck and see if you can see if anything is plugging up the cores.
Take off the bottom hose from the engine end. Dry it off real good and duct tape a garden hose to it so that you can force water backwards up the radiator and out the top hose. If water flows up the radiator somewhat easily, we are going to have to start looking elsewhere.
You can post pictures here (you may have to resize them down a bit) it would be a lot of help if we could see which radiator you have and what condition it's in.

Ladydee

One way to check if there is a blockage in the engine is to remove hoses and run water through the upper intake to the engine and see if you get water out the lower pipe. If you get more back out the top you probably have a blockage. Try the same thing with the rad. Fill the rad holding your hand over the bottom pipe and then let it go and see how quick it empties.

Don't know if this was mentioned before but your oil levels need to be between the lower and upper petcocks on the engine pan. Preferably with just a slight flow out the top.

Are you advancing the spark lever when running the engine?

As Tim has indicated there may be a thermostat erroneously installed in your Model T by a misguided previous owner. Be sure to check for the presence of an unwanted thermostat. If you find one dispose of it in a safe enviironmentally friendly manner.

A Model T needs an owner who knows how to operate the car to run cool. The timing needs to be advanced at any time other than strarting. The mixture needs to be adjusted so the engine does not blubber (too rich) or run hot (too lean). If you are in a parade keep the engine at a medium speed. A slow idle will not move much air through the radiator because of slow fan speed.

Ladydee,

Are you advancing the timing after starting the engine? If you leave the timing retarded the engine will run hot. Pull the left lever down to advance it after starting the engine.

Jim, Regarding the Louvers, on page 211 in Bruce's book he states that the Louvers were added for the horn & not for cooling.

Alex

I know it's in the book but that fact has not been proven. You can easily hear the horn through the radiator and from under the car. And as stated before, why put the louver openings too the rear? The driver doesn't need to hear the horn. And on top of that, the louvers are BEHIND the horn opening!

The horn may have been mentioned by Ford but clearly Ford was having problems with overheating. Most likely the horn was just a diversion away from the real problem.

That's my thoughts and I'm sticking to it--Book or no book.

Ken, To be honest I always thought they were for cooling too, but the horn thing piqued my curiosity because it sounded a little esoteric. I've read where owners of 15/16's would buy 1914 hoods to use during the winter. Perhaps the louvers served both purposes. After all those horns weren't the loudest things around.

Alex

ladydee:

I heard of one case were water was not circulating because the lower radiator had a cap in the outlet that was not removed before installing the radiator. If someone takes out the radiator and does not want "critters" to get inside, perhaps a plastic plug was installed and not removed when the radiator was re-installed!

I was on the tour with the car that was overheating because the restorers had left a plastic plug in the lower radiator outlet. The red face in the crowd gave him away but it was a good laugh and it sure ran cool and sweet after that. It was a really cute little roadster.

One thing about the louver/horn/overheating issue that is often overlooked is that almost all T's at that time used engine pans and transmission pans. Today we rarely use them so hearing the horn is assumed to be a non issue but I wonder what the difference in perceived horn volume is on a car that has the pans removed versus one that does not. Just my musings - I have no measured data to bring to the party here.

Thank you John. That is a factor I had not taken into consideration. If engine and transmission pans were used on early Model T's without hood louvers, I suspect heat would have been an even bigger concern, for with virtually no exit for the heat from under the engine compartment, save for the leakage around the hood and through the firewall and pedal openings, those cars must have been mighty hot for the drivers before the addition of the hood louvers. Jim Patrick

Uppon installing the engine in the 14 i replaced the engine pans but i have as yet to replace the tin that is from the dash to the hogshead.The floor matt will raise and you get a good flow of air.Bud.

thank you for all your Advice and help..We took the bottem hose off of the radiator, the one close to the engine..It had Sediment, and rust particles inside. So I think Blockage was and is the problem.. We are going to work on it this weekend ,,I will keep you all posted on what more we find..The Raditator , as I was told is fairly new...I will find out for sure.

You may want to take your radiator to a radiator shop and have it boiled out. Most radiator shops have tanks filled with caustic liquids, big enough to handle about any sized radiator. The entire radiator is submerged and left to soak which will allow the caustic solution to disolve the deposits on the interior walls of the tubes and remove the layers of old paint from the exterior tubes and fins. After this is done, they will seal off all openings and do a pressure check to locate any leaks which they will then repair with solder. After this, You will need to repaint your radiator black, but be sure to use the special radiator paint from Eastwood as it is a special paint, as it will destroy the efficiency of your radiator and overheating will continue to occur. Jim Patrick.

You can spend alot of time worrying about all of this, or do what I finally did that worked out just great - buy a new flat tube radiator, fill it 50 50 with antifreeze and use water wetter. End of problems!

I agree with you John. I purchased a new flat tube radiator from Brassworks several years ago for less than $500.00 only because I took my own advice, and took my original radiator to a radiator shop and was told that it was beyond repair, however, these days, a new flat tube radiator from Brassworks costs over $800.00 (with shipping) and many folks cannot afford that kind of expense, so, if the original radiator can be cleaned and used, it should be, before deciding to spend over $800.00, especially if it is unnecessary. Jim Patrick