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1outta14chevy - I hope you don't think that I have hijacked your thread. Not my intention nor the way I operate. I am having some of the same problems as you are. I hope that you are able to resolve your issues with some of the suggestion that have been posted to my questions.

I went to a cruise night about 20 minutes from my house. Some city driving some almost highway - 40 mph. Temp gauge was just past 1/2 way. When I got there, got the temp gun out everything was good and nothing on the pavement. Came home, the temp gauge showed that the engine was running cooler, but got in the driveway and it was spitting on the ground. Not at lot, but still was hot enough to open the rad cap. The fact that there is no thermostat in the car is now really making me think that there could be a issue with the distribution tube. Has anybody got some good pitures of what it looks like, and can tell me where it is? I haven't been able to locate it yet in the literature.

The water pump has to remove to access it and radiator removed to pull it completely out. Not a job to do unless you've exhausted all other possibilities for overheating or plan on removing the radiator for another reason. If you do a search for "distribution tube" there are a few threads showing the reason why it's a good idea to check them when the radiator is out.

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Thanks for the picture Howard. I'm going to try and adjust the metering rods a bit to see if I can get more gas through. I still think it's running a little lean. I bought this car in September, and it was running rich. Rebuilt the carb and now it runs hot. But it still makes me wonder why was the thermostat removed.

Mark - just picked up a 160 degree stat from Napa this afternoon. The model number is Superstat 530060. this is supposed to be the better than OE model.

Let me know if you need a distribution tube. I have a spare one.

Thanks David. Will advise.

If you overfill your radiator, it is going to overflow when hot even and normal temps. That expanding water has to go somewhere.

Yes. I have it so it is just covering the top of the tubes.

Here's a little tid bit of info. Mr. David Grubbs informed me that I should install a thermostat, that it is quite possible that it will run cooler. As he put it, in his youth he remembers some "Shadetree mechanics" removing the thermostat to make the engine run cooler, and that this is not necessarily the case. So I tossed this theory at a couple of guys I work with who are very good Shadetree mechanics, and they both agree with Mr. Grubbs. One of them has a 49 Ford 1/2 ton truck, and it ran hot when he got it. He found out that it had no thermostats in it. Installed the therrmostats and has had no issues of overheating in 15 years of owning the truck. Same stats to boot. Thanks David!

The flat-head V-8 Fords would often overheat if the the thermostats were removed. The overheating was caused by too much coolant flow through the radiator. One common fix was to gut the thermostats, or install some large washers so that they would provide a restriction to the coolant flow. Another would be to use summer and winter thermostats - summer being a low temp (140F/150F) and winter being higher temp ( 160F/170F). Other engines may suffer this same problem. A blast from the past...

(o{}o)

The earlier post indicates highest temp at 205 by spark plug. I would think that's normal and your sending unit or gauge has a problem. Thank you for your post it has been interesting following comments.