2022 check-in on cooling fan upgrades

Hi Guys,
I live in northern Utah and took a great drive in the mountains with my 85 QV US this weekend. Some serious twisties and major elevation changes in a few miles...fun. The only thing that put a damper on my smile was watching the temp needle creep towards the upper end of the gauge. When on the street, the needle rarely gets past 195 (6 o'clock position), but pulling the car uphill for long stretches at low speeds obviously puts more stress on the cooling system. The gauge never pinned, but it came within maybe a needle's width. FYI I had the radiator serviced last fall and have bled the air out of the radiator and tstat housing (multiple times until all air was out). Everything seems to be in good working order. But if I'm going to drive in Utah, I'm thinking it may be a good idea to have more cooling capacity.

I've searched all of the fan upgrade threads, but the most recent seems to be 2019. So I thought I'd check in and see if there are any other/better options in 2022. TIA

Ian

 

What did your radiator service include?

I had similar symptoms to you and I had my radiator re-cored. Guy said it was half plugged.

 

Wide World Ferrari removed the radiator and sent it out for cleaning, repair/pressure testing and refinishing. It wasn't re-cored to the best of my knowledge. Are there tests we can do in the car to determine if there's plugging?

BTW the reason they did that is I was seeing evidence of a fine spray of coolant on the spare tire housing.

 

https://www.nicksforzaferrari.net/nff-performance-radiators.html

 

Have you done a pressure test on the system to confirm that it is not leaking?

 

Not specifically, but during the bleeding process I definitely got pressurized air out of the system. Gonna pick up a pressure tester and confirm.

 

"When on the street, the needle rarely gets past 195 (6 o'clock position), but pulling the car uphill for long stretches at low speeds obviously puts more stress on the cooling system."

When you say "uphill for long stretches at low speeds," what speed is that? Most of the complaints re 308 cooling are about extended stop/go traffic in warmer weather, not for moving down the road at pretty much any speed above maybe 20-25MPH.

Assuming the temp gauge is functioning correctly, it sounds like the coolant is getting much hotter than it should under the conditions you describe - a needle's width shy of pinned is (as they say in scientific circles) "Pretty danged hot!"

You mentioned multiple bleedings to get all the air out. If the system needs periodic bleeding there could be a leak within the cooling system since air is not "generated" within the system.

 

There are lots of discussions about this topic but "a needles width from pegged" is far beyond where you should have gone before shutting down and figuring out what's going on. If the gauge is correct that's like 250F which is pretty much the boiling point of a 50/50 coolant solution at 1 bar. It's not going to get that hot unless something is wrong.

 

Agreed. There's something wrong other than old cooling fans.

 

Thanks, Guys. Yeah it wasn't pleasant seeing the needle that high. But pulling over on a tiny mountain road wasn't a safe option and I was pretty near the top at that point. Fortunately, once I crested, the temps quickly came back down to normal - 195. Agree that something isn't right, but still not exactly sure what. If it runs at normal temps on normal roads, but gets hot when pushed hard on steep grades and hairpin turns at 15mph, where would you look first?

As to why I bled the system multiple times...Wide World Ferrari had just overhauled the radiator and flushed the system. In my experience it takes several cycles of bleeding to fully remove air from the system. I followed Birdman's writeup on that as well.

 

Agree with the plug for Nick’s radiator upgrades. That has made a huge improvement with my car. And, I still run the original Lucas cooling fans.

 

First suspect would be the radiator; second suspect might be the water pump, if the impeller blades were eroded significantly. QV 308s were borderline on cooling performance out the factory door, compared to the 2 valve 308s which cooled well when new. It sounds like your car can't shed additional heat load, which goes back to radiator performance.

I have the Nicks Forza radiator in my QV, along with 2 upgraded SPAL fans - zero overheating under any circumstance now.

Gordon

 

Appreciate the feedback. Thanks. Water pump was replaced 6K miles / 4 years ago during a belt service at Domenick's in White Plains, NY and there looks to be good circulation in the expansion tank. Loved those guys. So sad about their health issues.

I wouldn't be surprised if Wide World didn't do the greatest job refurbishing the radiator. Not impressed with my service experience there. I had a leak from the cam seals. When I got the car back, I noticed they didn't bother cleaning the caked on oil on the alternator housing and hose caused by the leak. And 6 months later I'm seeing some drips...

 

The first time my car started overheating like this, it came down to a bad radiator cap.

There were some other leaks in the system, but it was the bad cap that made the needle scare the hell out of me.

 

Well believe me, I've been down this road. I started with the cap, then the thermostat, all new hoses and couplers, new radiator, new fans, new water pump but the condition continued to worsen. FWIW when I first got the car there was no problem, it never overheated so no, it is not "normal" for a QV to behave this way. In my case I had a blown head gasket. I fixed that and it's back to normal, never overheats.

I'm not suggesting this is your problem, it could be any one of those items I listed including a fourteen dollar radiator cap so start there and see what happens.

 

Thanks for sharing your overhearing journey . Is there a 308-specific test for blown head gasket? When my 65 mustang blew a head gasket there was coolant in the oil, but everything is clean. Gonna start with a new cap and see where that takes me….

 

the 308 cooling system is perfect in every climate conditions. You don't need any upgrade, only a service: you need to service the radiator core and maybe the waterpump too.

Every some years you should change the coolant: otherwise a too old coolant will destroy the gaskets and close the radiator small tubes.

Ciao

 

It's a small chance it's wrong but it's worth checking if the fan is spinning in the right direction. If not, there could be insufficient cooling at low speeds.

 

The term "blown" head gasket is vague and generic as there are a number of different ways a head gasket can fail. One of them is a breach of the seal at the top of the cylinder that can allow combustion gas to enter the cooling system and coolant to leak into the cylinder. There are test kits which can detect combustion gas in the cooling system but I found these do not work with the 308 because the gas is first transported up front to the radiator where it is trapped and so you will never detect it at the expansion tank. Another way to check is with a leak-down test of the cylinders which is how I found my issue. Also if you can look inside with one of the inexpensive USB mini-probe cameras available the carbon on top of the piston of a cylinder that has coolant leaking into it will be conspicuously cleaned off.

Here is a short 10 second video of when I discovered my breach on #4 cylinder with a leak-down test.

 

And of course, failure to change coolant every 5 years can cause aluminum corrosion that can severely restrict flow from the heads to the cross over pipe.

Look at that nice brown colored plugged coolant passage in the middle Image Unavailable, Please Login

Doug

 

I bet it was fun getting the heads off that one!!

 

same thing happened to me in my 84 QV 2 weeks ago. I was running around Monterey and Carmel in traffic. temps were fine. I had a spirited run along Carmel valley road/up and over Los laureles grade towards laguna seca.

I decided to pulled over as my temps crept up. I would say 7/8 of the gauge range. outside temp that day was around 82F
too high for comfort. I turned the heater on and cruised down the hill. the gauge temp normalized.
I drove home and checked the temp with digital thermometer at the radiator hose and temps were in the 160-170 range..
I checked my fans and they were working...
radiator recently re cored

 

Yep. Similar circumstances. I'm going to continue troubleshooting and will post what I find. Really hoping it's not the head gasket...

 

Can't really trust the gauge.

 

Unfortunately this isn't always the case in a QV down here in the deep south in a traffic jam in August.