The last big construction item is the radiator. When I built the 302 many years ago I experimented with constructing a radiator but without much success, mostly at that time due to a lack of experience and knowledge. I ended up going to a radiator shop and asking them for some help. When I showed them the engine the owner said that he could get me a piece of core material in just about any size I wanted. I gave him the dimensions I needed and true to his word he supplied me with a miniature radiator with the header plates. All I had to do was make the tanks and solder it together.
Jump ahead 20 years. I took the flathead to the local rad shop, which there aren't many these days, and explained what I needed. He said that something custom made would have to be constructed and he made a call to someone who could do it. It would be a couple of hundred dollars but more to the point I would have no idea what I was going to get so I set about designing and assembling the materials to build my own.
The rad I came up with consists of 64 3/16's brass tubes, 47 .025 fins, two header and side plates and of course the top and bottom tanks. I had a plan of action to assemble all these bits but having never done anything quite like this in the past I wasn't quite sure what I would end up with.
All the fins were machined to size, soldered together and drilled as a block so that all the holes would hopefully line up when it came time to assemble everything. The side plates and headers were machined and drilled and put together with some 2-56 flat head screws at each corner. The corners would be reinforced with solder when I started soldering the whole thing together.
To this point most of the work went fine but with a few minor glitches.
The big adventure would be the soldering. I purchased a bottle of Ruby fluid. This is Zinc Chloride. With the metal warmed up and applied with a brush it cleans the brass and allows the solder to flow into all the crevices.
I started at the bottom header and soldered all the tubes in place. I then worked my way down the fins dabbing solder to them and the tubes then brushing with acid. The job went better than I expected with just a few globs of solder here and there. With these I heated them with the propane torch then gave them a shot of compressed air to blow them clean. When I got finished I had bits of solder sprayed all over my work bench.
Once the core was soldered I meticulously checked the tube joints before soldering on the top and bottom tanks. I didn't want to have to unsolder them to try and fix a leak.
The tanks were buffed before installation so that I would have to try and buff around all the fittings.
Upon completion I made a mount for the rad which mimicked the front engine mount, just to keep things consistent.
With this out of the way I can get back to finishing up the remaining small pieces.
gbritnell