Today on Chuck's Garage, Chuck Hanson continues his LS engine swap on a budget by tackling
the cooling system.
Hey, welcome back to Chuck's Garage and another installment of our LS engine swap into a classic
Chevelle chassis.
Now what we're going to be working on this week is the cooling system and to get things
going I've already bolted up a core support that I had laying around here, it's for a
70 Chevelle, but I had to powder coat it to make it look pretty, and the next thing we're
going to do is set our radiator in place and let me show you what we're going to be working
with today.
Now believe it or not, sizing out the cooling system for this LS engine swap was one of
the toughest parts of this whole project, and it wasn't because there was a shortage
of product, in fact it was just the opposite, there is so many different options for cooling
systems out there that we almost became confused with all of the options that we had, but this
is what we came up with.
This comes from Dewitt's radiators and it's an aluminum radiator as you can see and it's
part of their original 5th series, which means this thing is going to drop right in place
like the original radiator, the spacing for the tanks, the size of the tanks, all that
stuff is going to allow you to drop it right in place of the original radiator on that
stock core support there but here's a lot of what we really looked at, and this is what
makes the difference.
So the LS engine comes with a lot of different connections for the cooling system and our
Tahoe has the truck water pump on it still, so we wanted to look at keeping our cooling
connections as short as possible.
So we decided to get a radiator with the upper bung located on the passengers side of the
tank and also the inlet is on the passenger side of the tank.
Now here's something else cool about this Dewitt radiator here, it also comes with a
thermal switch already installed, and this is going to be used to control the fans, and
here's the little bung for the steam hose fitting.
Now we also went ahead and popped for their electric cooling fan option, they use fall
dual 11 inch fans here, and we've used falls before, as great product and to really dress
things up we've popped for the additional billet covers for the back of the fans and
finally for the billet radiator cap, that's gonna look really nice on there.
Now you might remember that I said this Dewitt radiator is part of their direct fit series
and of course it's made from aluminum, but one of the things I also wanted to tell you
about is, they also furnace braise this core into the tanks not epoxied like some of the
other radiators out there.
That's gonna give you a strong radiator that also carries a lifetime warranty.
One more thing before I slip this thing into the core support there.
We ordered ours in this natural aluminum finish but if you want more of an OE look, well you
can get them in black too.
Since this is a direct fit radiator we're able to use the original GM rubber isolation
mounts here in the bottom of the core support, so with those in place, we're ready to set
the radiator in just like that, and then once the radiator's in place we can go ahead and
hold it in position with this factory top radiator support.
Again using the rubber mounts from the OE application.
Now the next problem that we had to solve was connecting the engine to that radiator
and believe it or not I just kind of looked at this relationship here and I go, you know
what, the OS in the Tahoe hooks up in about the same way as this situation here so what
I did was I ordered a lower radiator hose for a 2003 Tahoe, slipped it in place and
believe it or not thats al that we had to trim of the end of it, and as you can see,
it just slips right in place.
Nice really nice.
Now the top one though, was a different story, I got a little trick that I'm going to show
you, how to figure all that out.
So finding a upper radiator hose that would work, wasn't quite as simple as hooking up
the bottom hose there, but here's a little trick that I used to help me get to where
I needed to go.
I took an old coat hanger and cut it basically to length here and then what I did was I stuck
one end in the outlet here and just kind of bent it so it would clear all the accessories
and ended up over here at the inlet on the radiator.
So what I did then was I took this piece of wire and I went to my local Autozone and I
said, hey guys I need a hose that looks like this, and they pointed me to the back room
and said, hey Chuck, have at it.
So what I came up with was a decol, I didn't know what the application is, but I do have
the hose and I have the hose number.
Now this thing was really close, all I had to do, one end of it was swelled a little
bit, so I cut that end off, still gave me the shape that I needed and then I had to
trim the other end off just a little bit as well.
Once I had that done, man this thing went right on there just like it was made for it.
Plenty of clearance around the accessories, and we'll go and get some of those squeeze
clamps like what came on the original application, and we're gonna be good to go.
Now the steam hose connection, again we went back to our old parts source here.
This hose actually came off that Tahoe application there and goes right on that lower nipple
there and we're gonna let it follow the upper radiator hose and hooks right into this end
over here by the cylinder head.
Now we'll just slip the original clamp back in place here, get it secured on this end
and we'll use some zip ties and secure that steam hose to the upper radiator hose and
we're in business.
Now some of you sharp eyed viewers out there are probably wondering right now, what are
you guys going to do with those 2 outlets that normally feed the heater?
Well right now what we're going to do is we're gonna go ahead and find a cap that'll fit
on these here, we'll just cap them off for the time being until we're gonna get the body
set down then we'll put them to the use that they were originally intended for, but right
now we're just gonna cap them and we'll get to them later, I got to get the right sizes
so I can get to the store and get the right caps.
Some of you guys are probably wondering why order a radiator with a transmission cooler
already in it.
Here's the reason why, not only is this cooler from Permacool going to be able to cool the
transmission, but it also has fitting to cool the power steering as well.
Now because we plan on autocrossing this car at some point down the road, autocrossing
puts a lot of heat into the hydraulic steering system there, and this cooler is really going
to take that heat out of it and increase the longevity of our power steering system.
Same way with the trans cooler, this thing is rated up to 10,000 GBW and it's going to
have plenty of cooling capacity for our transmission and, like I say, it's got a integral fan in
it.
I went ahead and ordered a thermo switch to control the fan and I went ahead and popped
for their heavy duty mounting brackets here.
I think the next thing to do is find a suitable location to mount this cooler.
You know, there's a lot to think about when you're trying to find a location to mount
your cooler, and a couple of things that I use for my criteria was, I wanted to keep
the hook ups fairly short, fairly straight, fairly simple.
I also needed to have a location where there would be plenty of cool air, not too close
to a heat source, and a place that would be fairly easy to fab up the mounting brackets.
So I got a lot of suggestions from friends of mine, everybody wanted to mount it towards
the back where there would be good flow, either that or up in the front.
Out back, too long of a connection, up front, then the packaging up in the front of the
engine is just too tight.
So I called up our friends at Permacool and sought their suggestion on that and they came
up with this one.
Why not mount it to the cross member just like this, It's fairly removed from a heat
source there, we'll have plenty of room for the fan to blow the cool air through there,
and like I say the cross member gives us a mounting location there and this gusset right
here for the frame will give us an opportunity to create another bracket here to support
the back end of the cooler.
Then our hookups are fairly short tot he transmission and to the power steering and, we really appreciate
them for giving us that good suggestion here.
I guess we better get busy fabbing up those mounts.
After measuring the center to center distance between the brackets we came up with 3 and
a half inches, so we transfer that dimension to the cross member, and then we go ahead
and drill it.
Then we can thread the holes using the screw that we planned that mount the cooler.
Alright now, before we go ahead and dummy up the rear mounting brackets, I went ahead
and shortened up these front ones, got them to the length that they need to be.
Now to hold up the back end of the cooler here, what we did was fab a small L bracket
using some left over pieces from the other bracket that we used on the front end of this
thing.
Got a self tapping screw here.
get this last screw tightened up here, and we are good.
Well we've done a pretty good bit of work today, in fact what we've done is we've mounted
our cooling system, our electric fans, the core support, got to mount the situator here
for our transmission and power steering cooler, and well I'm going to have to plumb that later
on.
But before I leave you today there's one more piece of business that I want to show you.
You may recall that in the past, I mounted a temporary fuel delivery system, a Holley
pump and a couple of filters there so that we could get this thing up and running without
using that tanks INC tank that we had ordered, we plan on running things out of a fuel cell
instead.
But since then I've had a chance to re-think that program, and thanks to some feedback
from you guys on Youtube and stuff.
What I've decided to do was I went ahead and turned the fuel pump and filters back in tot
he speed shop and got a refund and got my money back.
Now what I used that money on was a complete tail pan trunk pan assembly here from Auto
Metal Direct down in Georgia.
Now the reason I did that was because I wanted to go ahead and mount up that tank that we
got form Tanks INC.
Now this is a one piece pan made out of heavy gauge steel just like the originals were but
here's what's really going to make this thing work for me, underneath here you see that
all the metal has also included all the bracing that's needed, it also includes the tank mounting
locations here and the stiffeners and everything that we need, it's got the mounts and stuff
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to mount that Tanks INC tank on here and then we'll
throw the whole pan on the body there and I'll plumb it when I get the rest of that
stuff done and we'll be in business.
Now this is really heavy stuff, nice piece here and we'll just lay it down.
Now what that's gonna allow us to do is actually put the tank in inverted like that and let
me go get that tank and we'll get it mounted up.
Now since I anticipated mounting this thing up today what I did was I went ahead and installed
the fuel pump and the center units in there like I showed you before.
This is all ready to go, so what we're going to do is we're going to put the tank in here
upside down, find it's sweet spot, right there, and then the Tank INC tank straps that came
with this kit, we'll just put them in place too.
We'll just tighten those up with a ratchet and we'll be good.
Now before we can mount that tail pan we've got to use some body mounts that isolate it
from the frame itself, so here's where they go, right back here in the corner, just like
that, bolt those down through there.
We've got 4 of them back here, we'll set the pan on there, and then we'll go ahead and
secure it.
Well that last piece that we have for this fuel tank puzzle is the fuel filler neck and
of course that comes with it from Fuel Tanks INC, it slips over the filler hole like that,
there we go.
We tighten up the clamps and well, we're pretty good, so that about raps it up for today,
we're kind of at a work stoppage here.
Now next time I see you, I'm going to go ahead and have the whole cooling system plumbed,
the fuel system plumbed, the transmission and the power steering systems will be plumbed
and well, then we're going to try and wire it and fire it.
Wish us luck and we'll see you here soon.