On Jun 20, 2007, at 6:47 PM, Matthew Milkevitch wrote:
> I have a cooling issue with my '74 MGB-GT, and I was wondering if
> anyone had any input as to the cause.
Step 1 is to determine the actual temperature of your head and
radiator. Go buy an infrared thermometer from NAPA or Radio Shack.
Get the car to temp, then pull over and point at the thermostat
housing, intake of the rad, and exit of the rad. The radiator temp
should be at or above the thermostat temp.
> The basic problem is this: The past couple of days have been
> fairly hot here in Philadelphia. Running my BGT with a 165 deg F
> thermostat, the car seems to run a little hot (in my opinion). The
> needle on the temp gauge is a little above the "N." When I sit in
> traffic, the temp goes up some more, maybe 1/2 way between "N" and
> "H." It comes down a little when I get going.=
That's perfectly normal. When my car was having severe heat issues,
"half way between N and H" was about 210 degrees, which is hot, but
not too hot. Full H was about 240, which was a problem.
> Today, it was in the low 80's in Phila...very dry and nice. I
> ran the car and it pretty much did the same thing!
Check your temps first. Don't even worry unless you are above the
boiling point of water. If your rad has warm water in it, the
thermostat is working.
In my case, changing thermostats, changing water pumps, re-coring the
radiator, adding an oil cooler, and all sorts of things didn't help.
If the temp was above 80, I'd routinely be running temperatures in
excess of 230 degrees at the thermostat elbow. The problem went away
a few years ago when the head was cleaned in the caustic tank as a
result of a valve job (I had a valve stick in a 15 degree winter
day). I now run a 190 degree stat year round, which works in -5
winter days and 90 summer days. I still see the gauge spike to the
210 point, but no higher.
If your temps are out of whack and nothing else fixes it, clean out
the water passages in your head and block (hah!).
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