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The Shop Truck

1971 Chevy C20 with a custom flat bed.
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I'm looking through my datalogs and I can't find the one where I thought I saw it. I'm not sure if I just revved the engine while looking at the dash, or if it's just a fever dream. I swear I saw 30psi though, but I can't figure out where I saw that.
 
That would be a good place too, but I have my water temp gauge plugged in there.
 
I got all the parts I needed to be able to prime the oil. I think Sikky exaggerated about the capacity of the pan considerably. I only managed to get 8 quarts in, my math says 13 feet of 10AN line = .6something quarts, plus the oil filter, plus the fittings, plus the oil cooler. It seems like it should be more than 8 quarts if it's a 7 quart sump.
I managed to get 20+psi using my garden sprayer oil priming pump, I was pretty happy about that. At 20+ psi it still takes about 5 minutes to push 2 quarts through the system. 20/50 oil is thicc.
Once it was primed, I ran the starter (floored it for flood clear aka no fuel) and saw 58ish psi on the starter. We started it and saw 75ish psi at idle, I was tired so we just shut it off at that point. I'll drive it around tomorrow to see if it will stay cool at idle, it's over 100 here now so this will be a good test.
 
I charged the A/C today, the truck stayed nice and cool while I did that, with the condenser fan running the main fans hardly turned on at all. This was in the 80°F shop with the evap blasting though. Once i had the A/C blowing cold, I took it for a test drive. When I'm moving, the oil really doesn't get much hotter than 205°. I ended up doing a mix of aggressive freeway acceleration, stop and go, 25mph stuff etc, then I went to my friends house and parked with the A/C blasting. The fan for the oil cooler doesn't turn on until 215°, it starts at 25% and ramps up to full speed by 240°, I never saw it get over 225°. The water temps were not as happy, they just kept slowly climbing, I shut off the A/C and that didn't really make a difference (because the condenser fan shut off), I'm controlling both with the Holley, so I could make the condenser fan turn on when coolant temp gets over 225° to help, but I don't think that would fix it, plus I don't want to shut the A/C off.
Tomorrow I'll probably try the old fans, I will be very shocked if that fixes it, but at least it would be fixed. If that fails, I'll try the water pump. If that fails, I'm not sure what I'm going to do.
I have the dyno session set up with the tuner on the 16th. He's a little worried that his hub dyno won't be able to handle the torque, that made me giggle a little. I just hope nothing breaks on the Dyno.
 
So I was thinking last night, what if I switch to water+water wetter in the summer and coolant in the winter. I wonder if that would be a big enough improvement to keep it cool at idle. Reading online, that should be 15-20% better cooling than my current 50/50 mix.
 
r3dd0g said:
So I was thinking last night, what if I switch to water+water wetter in the summer and coolant in the winter. I wonder if that would be a big enough improvement to keep it cool at idle. Reading online, that should be 15-20% better cooling than my current 50/50 mix.
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I’ve noticed a slight improvement going that route, but I don’t think it’ll do what you hope.
I have run it in motorcycles and my vette.
 
It seems like the cooling system is able to deal with 95% of the heat, it's that last little bit that makes it heat up when sitting at an idle or driving very slow. I don't think I need a huge improvement, because it cools fine at 80°, but not at 100°.
 
No new ideas for heating issue.
Did want to ask which trinary switch are you using ? what size is the thread on port.
 
Well, that was unexpected. I would have never looked at these 2 fans and picked the brushed fan as the better option.
IMG_20260605_125654666.jpg

I didn't even want to swap them in I was so convinced that it wasn't the problem, but I wanted to swap the water pump even less so I did the fans first. 100°+ outside, sameish drive, then parked it at my friends house and let it sit with the A/C blasting, the fans would actually cool it down to 205° and shut off. I wasted so much time trying to figure something out.

They are still pretty borderline at keeping it cool. I'm going to talk to Ron Davis and see if he can recommend a better fan for it. I'll also be talking to DeltaPAG about returning the fans, but that's probably not going to work out.
 
r3dd0g said:
Well, that was unexpected. I would have never looked at these 2 fans and picked the brushed fan as the better option.
IMG_20260605_125654666.jpg

I didn't even want to swap them in I was so convinced that it wasn't the problem, but I wanted to swap the water pump even less so I did the fans first. 100°+ outside, sameish drive, then parked it at my friends house and let it sit with the A/C blasting, the fans would actually cool it down to 205° and shut off. I wasted so much time trying to figure something out.

They are still pretty borderline at keeping it cool. I'm going to talk to Ron Davis and see if he can recommend a better fan for it. I'll also be talking to DeltaPAG about returning the fans, but that's probably not going to work out.
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That’s irritating, but not surprising.
 
Ron will probably suggest Spal and the Ron Davis fan shroud. I'll say I've been happy with mine and they do a great job, but I did have both spals burn up two years ago and had to replace them.

I now keep spares of every fan and am going to be doing a replacement schedule.

Also, I spoke to him years ago and we got on the topic of the GM leak tablets. I've used them for a long time and he had great experience with them as well. When I broke the rad in my crawler I think those tablets are what allowed me to keep wheeling it for the rest of the trip.
 
Tnsejed said:
Ron will probably suggest Spal and the Ron Davis fan shroud. I'll say I've been happy with mine and they do a great job, but I did have both spals burn up two years ago and had to replace them.

I now keep spares of every fan and am going to be doing a replacement schedule.

Also, I spoke to him years ago and we got on the topic of the GM leak tablets. I've used them for a long time and he had great experience with them as well. When I broke the rad in my crawler I think those tablets are what allowed me to keep wheeling it for the rest of the trip.
Click to expand...
I have his radiator, the shroud, and the brushed Spal fans that were in it. I'm hoping there is a brushless version with a more efficient fan blade design that pushes a bit more air. I actually picked up my radiator directly from his shop since it's here in Phoenix. That's why I went with his radiator, I figured he understood how to keep things cool here.

I'm very interested in what DeltaPAG has to say. I can't find any evidence of anyone else posting about this problem online. Everyone just sings the praises of the magic DeltaPAG fans.
 
Seems weird that they're both set up to turn counter clockwise.

I guess from the front they would be clockwise. :thinking:

I just always think of fans going clockwise for some reason lol
 
We put the front end of the truck back together today, cleaned up the engine bay, put some odds and ends back together, and tonight we're taking it to a car show (in theory). We haven't driven it with the grill back on yet, so I may still have some cooling issues. This is the test. We're going to what used to be the Pavilion's Rock and Roll car show, but now it's at Cold Beer and Cheeseburgers in Scottsdale.
The current plan is to do the midnight drags on 6/20 at Firebird for it's first trip to the strip with the blower.
 
r3dd0g said:
We put the front end of the truck back together today, cleaned up the engine bay, put some odds and ends back together, and tonight we're taking it to a car show (in theory). We haven't driven it with the grill back on yet, so I may still have some cooling issues. This is the test. We're going to what used to be the Pavilion's Rock and Roll car show, but now it's at Cold Beer and Cheeseburgers in Scottsdale.
The current plan is to do the midnight drags on 6/20 at Firebird for it's first trip to the strip with the blower.
Click to expand...
This has the old fans correctt?
 
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