396 Cooling System

[Mike W.]

Just had my 396 go through Survivor Judging. A judge told me the car was an early 396 (4/26/65) vin 16050. Should this car have an aluminum radiator? It tends to run hot in warmer weather.

[Dick W.]

Re: 396 Cooling System

Yes, but there were two styles. Only the later style is reproduced

[John S.]

Re: 396 Cooling System

Mike,

Your car should have an aluminum radiator - first design P/N 3005936,

[John S.]

Re: 396 Cooling System

Both designs are reproduced and are shown to be available in the catalogs.

[Dick W.]

Re: 396 Cooling System

Oops! My bad, I forgot that DeWitt was doing both designs.

[Joe L.]

Re: 396 Cooling System

Just had my 396 go through Survivor Judging. A judge told me the car was an early 396 (4/26/65) vin 16050. Should this car have an aluminum radiator? It tends to run hot in warmer weather.

Mike------


If you find one without an aluminum radiator, then you've found a car that someone has previously installed a non-original, copper-brass radiator. Absolutely no doubt about that, at all.

[Jack H.]

Re: 396 Cooling System

I've seen late April build 396 cars with both the early 'straight neck' and the second design 'curved neck' big Harrison aluminum radiator. I don't think we really know when the factory actually exhausted their on-hand inventory of early, straight neck, radiators and believe they were in a mixed-mode of production in mid through late April as the early inventory was being depleted.

Note the current revision of the '65 JG book reads:

"The change over to the second design occurs at approximately VIN 16200."

If you flip the '65 AIM to option L78, Sheet B1, it defines the radiator assy. It calls for the 2nd design (curved neck) radiator. Then, drop to the revision record and you'll see the radiator (Item 10) is specifically called out to be 'Redrawn & Redesigned' effective 2/11/65.

That says the factory knew the 1st design, straight neck, radiator was obsolete at the mid-February point. They wouldn't have been ordering any more 1st design Harrison radiators after that point in time.

But, WHEN did the first 2nd design radiator actually make it to production and WHEN did the last of the 1st design radiators go out the door? I don't think we'll every really know the answer...