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Bob, you made me feel a little better. One really odd thing is the manual says it should hold 24qrts/6gal. of coolant. When I drained the engine/radiator only 3.5gal came out. and I've repeated this several times. Where could 2.5 gallons be hiding?

Just a thought:
I suspect there is a drain on the side of the engine to drain the water jacket, was that included in your process? I am not even sure it is there on your senior car as I have no experience with that engine, but back then it was a common feature as anti-freeze was not always used so straight water would be removed from the engine to prevent freezing. That could be where some coolant is hiding.


I swapped the plug in this shot with a petcock so when I use it I can attach a hose so the coolant does not drain directly onto the starter. I still slip a zip-lock freezer bag over the starter when I use it to keep any wayward coolant from getting into any bearing areas.
Bob J.

The '37 does not have the engine drain, it all drains from the oil cooler through a petcock.
After flushing and refilling with Blue Devil, I started getting 5 gallons. This car is making me think in circles😜. Did it, didn't it, I thought so, I don't know, maybe. My father is having shoulder surgery tomorrow so, I'll be back at the car Thursday. I'm going to pull the water pump and check it for wear. I saw on another thread, KevinPackard's 38 was over heating, and it may have been from a poorly clearanced impeller causing cavitation or turbulence. I'm going to do some digging around the forum and see what else I can find. Sure, seems like this is a common problem with the oldies.

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Correct, that was one of the issues post-mortem that we found. The three main things we found to be possible causes of overheating were 1.) impeller too far from the pump housing causing lack of flow, 2.) water distribution jacket holes in the wrong places (person before us home made it), 3.) thermostat installed in the block when it shouldn't have been.

All that compounded on top of the known problems with the metallurgy of the '38 blocks. Now we have a '39 block instead, installed on a '38 crankcase. That involved a whole other set of issues.

-Kevin

Are the water distribution tube's still available or being remade, just in case?

Quote:

Start with Flackmaster to see if he has one. After that, check with Max Merritt. I noticed that they had new reproduction distribution tubes at Hershey.

I Actually just bought a set of artillery wheels from him. That will be a winter project. I will probably start a new thread as I do the restoration on them.
First I am going to fix the cooling system. Does anybody have some pics of a 37 water pump showing some detail, for comparison when I pull mine?

I got the water pump and jacket pulled. I don't see anything that jumps out at me that would cause overheating. The pump looks great, the jacket looks like new. There was some loose rust around the cylinders, but not bad. This engine doesn't use the distribution tube that many others have. It uses the water jacket to evenly distribute the water. Anybody see anything that jumps out at them?

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Getting back to the original post. I think we have remedied the situation. It was a culmination of operator error and electrical degradation. After rewiring the ignition wire to the coil it was starting easier, but the big one was "foot to the floor" while cranking. My dad grew up in the days of pumping the gas to get things started, so that's what I knew. once we mashed the gas and cranked, she started firing easily while hot. I was able to confirm this with all the coolant flushes I have been doing. Now I am waiting for gaskets and a couple jugs of thermocure to arrive. Another thing I found was, retorquing the head, all where 1/4-1/2 turn from 62ft/lbs. I may have leakage into the coolant from the combustion chamber, causing overheating. Once the parts get here I will be able to give her a test drive to confirm.