Hello,

A little late but as promised, pictures of my radiator that leaks like a sieve, especially once it warms up. I should have known to not buy the least expensive radiator but it bit me twice buying this one twice. Dumb, yes, I know. "Buy once and cry once" as they say around here and I shoulda' listened. The Dexcool coolant has some radiator dye in it that I added that causes the color change to yellow on the absorbent mat.

I will soon be a thousand bucks plus tax and shipping poorer buying hopefully a better radiator.

Rick

Hello,

Catching up a little. I have picked an aluminum Griffin LS swap radiator that will have a single large SPAL electric fan with a shroud. It is a two-row radiator with 1.25 inch tubing that is dimensionally almost the same as the failed Cold Case radiator. The radiator hoses will also not change.

This fan will run a pulse width modulation controller through the "YAZ" connector (SBL-YAZ-PT10-PKG) rather than the Davies-Craig analog controller that I have been using. There was certainly nothing wrong with the Davies-Craig controller - I simply wanted more precision in the control of the new SPAL fan. The already existing FlowKooler water pump body (part number 1669) will be drilled and tapped for the temperature probe in the YAZ connector.

This hardware is not here yet and I have some vacation time ahead of me so I don't know when it'll get installed. Fingers crossed that this is the absolute last radiator this car ever gets.

Rick

Hello,

I returned from vacation this past Monday and space has finally opened up today in the shop for the Catalina to get its new Griffin radiator, SPAL fan and the SBL-YAZ-PT10-PKG pulse width modulation fan controller.

Hopefully, this will be a one day job.

Rick

Hello,

It ultimately went in for the radiator replacement last Friday and was ready late yesterday but I picked it up today. And she's running very nicely with zero radiator leaks and very good engine temperatures. It was cool enough tonight that I put the top down.

If anybody ever needs the part numbers for what fits for an LS swap radiator with a single large Dewitts fan, here goes:

Griffin radiator 8-70008-LS

Dewitts DWR-32-SP480

Fingers crossed that I can keep this car running well for a while. It really needs a bath because it is very dusty.

Rick

3 hours ago, B52bombardier1 said:

Hello,

It ultimately went in for the radiator replacement last Friday and was ready late yesterday but I picked it up today. And she's running very nicely with zero radiator leaks and very good engine temperatures. It was cool enough tonight that I put the top down.

If anybody ever needs the part numbers for what fits for an LS swap radiator with a single large Dewitts fan, here goes:

Griffin radiator 8-70008-LS

Dewitts DWR-32-SP480

Fingers crossed that I can keep this car running well for a while. It really needs a bath because it is very dusty.

Rick

Hello,

I am back in the Detroit area as of last night on grandparent duty for a week. The Cat radiator is running well and has yet to top 210 degrees F. This new single fan is also quieter than the two older fans. And yea, no leaks.

Strangely, and some will remember this happening on old cars. My wife and I drove the Cat to church last Sunday for the first time. We come out and the horn is blowing random lengths of time very loudly. It was not a stuck horn button. I had to pull the power wire out of the center of horn relay to get it to stop.

This relay was / is only about 18 months old. Gotta' get a new one, I suppose.

Rick

Hello,

I got back home from Detroit on Wednesday night and drove the Catalina to work today with the top down. I'm off work early for the long weekend and I should be able to pick up my new horn relay later this afternoon that I mention immediately above. This should be an easy repair.

I stopped to eat a sandwich at a local restaurant on my way home today. As I was standing at the cash register to pay, a little girl maybe five years old and her in tow little brother approached me. With enormous confidence, reverence and a wide grin smile, she said "Mister, you have a very cool car".

I think her Dad may have encouraged this brief conversation but still, it made my day.

Rick

Hello,

It has been two good days of light wrenching and problem solving on the Catalina. More and more miles continue to be added to the odometer and I like to go back and look to see if things have loosened up. As we all know here, these are old vehicles that need a good inspection routine.

I tightened up the nuts and bolts on the new steering rag joint that got installed during the resto-mod. I also put the largest socket that I own onto a breaker bar to check the tightness on the Pitman arm nut. The drive shaft nuts also got a quick look. All of the other new steering components up front are protected by cotter pins.

You might recall that the original light as a feather road contact feel 1970 steering gear box got swapped out during the resto. It got replaced with a modern rebuilt GM Saginaw steering gear box out of a 1993-98 Jeep Grand Cherokee that has a much better steering ratio and a heftier hydraulic torsion bar valve. Yet, it still has the same sweep angle as the 1970 box - the car's turn radius is the same. All still tight here and no leaks anywhere.

I finally got around to putting the engine cover onto the 2002 model year GM truck LS engine. The intake manifold had lost its M6 x 1.0 nut that could hold the engine cover down and a little JB Weld on a new metric nut solved that problem.

And lastly, I finally pushed enough brain cells towards solving why the turn signals on this car blinked so slowly. A process of elimination led me to cleaning up a little corrosion on both sides of the 20-amp turn signal fuse holder contacts. Some Caig's DeOxit electronic contact cleaner, gentle scraping with a pick tool and a light bit of copper anti seize has now solved this problem. This is probably secondary to the years of convertible top water leakage that this car suffered that destroyed the driver's floor pan sheet metal.

Rick

Hello,

I continue to have doubts about my front brakes. They do stop the vehicle but on a hard pedal application, the front of the car develops a substantial vibration. I have taken the drums off and the shoes on the left front have small gouges in the friction material about half the size of a grain of rice. This friction material also produces a lot of dust. The drums were both turned when I put everything back together a year or so ago and there are no burn or scuff marks on the drum friction surface. The infrared temperature gun shows a temperature of typically 250-275 F after an average drive.

So I called up the tech support guy at the Fort Wayne, IN company that rebuilt the brake booster on this car - "Brake Materials and Parts". He suggests that the friction compound on these shoes is too soft for the usual temperatures that the front brakes on this car develops.

Last night, I placed a $38.00 order at my local O'Reilly's for a brand new set of 11 x 2.75 inch shoes for the front and they will be here on Tuesday. It does not matter what friction material is on these because my Indiana tech support guy say's send them to him as they are. He will remove whatever friction material is on them and replace it with something a little harder, that makes a little less dust and that can resist a 600 degree F temperature. He will also "arch" and contour these shoes for a more perfect and complete fit against the inside of the drums. I did not remember saving the old shoes when I took this car apart but sure enough, I did. However, the friction material on these is riveted, not bonded. I will need to call the Indiana shop back on Monday and ask if using a riveted style is suitable for his efforts.

I'm told this new friction material is not ceramic and not carbon fiber and certainly not asbestos. The service price for this is $36 per shoe with an additional one time $30.00 shop fee. Plus shipping. And about a 10-14 day turnaround time to do the work. If the first set of shoes works as well after this treatment as I hope, I will probably send in a second set for future use.

We shall see how things go when I get them back. If this does not work out, I will probably be in the market for a front disk conversion kit.

Rick

7 hours ago, B52bombardier1 said:

Hello,

I continue to have doubts about my front brakes. They do stop the vehicle but on a hard pedal application, the front of the car develops a substantial vibration. I have taken the drums off and the shoes on the left front have small gouges in the friction material about half the size of a grain of rice. This friction material also produces a lot of dust. The drums were both turned when I put everything back together a year or so ago and there are no burn or scuff marks on the drum friction surface. The infrared temperature gun shows a temperature of typically 250-275 F after an average drive.

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So I called up the tech support guy at the Fort Wayne, IN company that rebuilt the brake booster on this car - "Brake Materials and Parts". He suggests that the friction compound on these shoes is too soft for the usual temperatures that the front brakes on this car develops.

Last night, I placed a $38.00 order at my local O'Reilly's for a brand new set of 11 x 2.75 inch shoes for the front and they will be here on Tuesday. It does not matter what friction material is on these because my Indiana tech support guy say's send them to him as they are. He will remove whatever friction material is on them and replace it with something a little harder, that makes a little less dust and that can resist a 600 degree F temperature. He will also "arch" and contour these shoes for a more perfect and complete fit against the inside of the drums. I did not remember saving the old shoes when I took this car apart but sure enough, I did. However, the friction material on these is riveted, not bonded. I will need to call the Indiana shop back on Monday and ask if using a riveted style is suitable for his efforts.

I'm told this new friction material is not ceramic and not carbon fiber and certainly not asbestos. The service price for this is $36 per shoe with an additional one time $30.00 shop fee. Plus shipping. And about a 10-14 day turnaround time to do the work. If the first set of shoes works as well after this treatment as I hope, I will probably send in a second set for future use.

We shall see how things go when I get them back. If this does not work out, I will probably be in the market for a front disk conversion kit.

Rick

Nothing wrongway with your big arse drum front end Rick ! Both my 59 caddy and the 64 Bonnie have the same front drums and they stop really really well ! JustA don’t do it on a race track !!!!

I do what you’re going to do and get the new shoes matched to your drums ! That’s important.

And your onto it

Change the composition 🙏🍺

Hello,

I had a very "dark" situation happen to me in the Catalina two nights ago. I'm returning from an evening car club related meeting with the headlights on and all is normal. I turn down my rural road and put on the high beams - all four headlights are now on about one mile from home. The heater blower has been on with the top down. Mind you, this was this car's longest night time trip so far since arising from entry into its 1993 dead slumber.

Seventy five yards from my driveway, I apply the brakes and a second later, everything dies. Total blackness in a totally dead car, no running engine on a rural road with the closest overhead street light three quarters of a mile away.

Its very dark and I manage to use these "Armstrong Motor" bicep muscle guns of mine to man handle the steering of my Catalina just barely into my driveway. And it coasts to a safe stop well clear of the street.

So, no electrical power. Not even a floor courtesy light with the door open. I head into the shop to get a flashlight and come back to pop open the hood. I had long ago removed the charred, melted and blown fusible link in this car's underhood engine electrical harness and replaced it with a fuse - a 25 amp fuse, in this case. That fusible link wire was toast the day I brought this car home on a trailer and I have a phobia against fusible link wires because they are impossible to repair on the roadside. Clearly, I undercounted how many amps this car might consume in situations like this evening drive and I over-protected that eight gauge wire with too small of a fuse.

In went a new thirty amp fuse and everything instantly came back to life. I started it up and promptly pulled it into its shop parking spot. I'm still debating myself whether a 30, 35 or a 40 amp fuse will be more suitable but I now have a glove box pill bottle full of various size fuses.

Rick

what circut was that on Rick ???

dont you have it all split down ? and on 30 amp to each section for those high drain ones like head lights hood horn heater fans(they are 60)

I am going to spilt everything on the 63 and take all the load off the ignition switch and light switch with 30 amp relays and 30 amp fuses on each, but what i dont know is what gauge wire to use, its all fine using higher amp fuses but it has to be the right gauge wire that your protecting !!!

i always remeber when i was a kid watching my dad pulling the fuse on the wall in the garage and puting in a fuse with a nail in it when he would want to weld !!!

i am sure he really never though about how hot the wires in the wall of the garage got hot while he was welding back then !!!!