Collected car today from the shop ... fun never stops

[Horseplay]

You have to consider when something happens and be able to list out all the variables to find the solution. Stuff rarely just happens. It's usually the result of something you did. So ask yourself what has recently changed prior to the new "overheating" issue. From my seat all I can do is make observations on what you tell us. From your posts it seemed to me that the temp has been issue since the install of the EFI. This is why I suggest looking at the AFR and timing. Both of those have likely changed since the EFI install. The shop you use is used to modern stuff (high end even super type cars at that based on what you have shown us) where all that is computer controlled automatically. The mechanics are likely not well versed in old Ford tech. That 60's cooling system itself was often challenged just in normal "life". You've added air conditioning and a climate it never saw coming in some regards. Your auto trans also uses the same radiator to keep cool which means it also adds to cooling woes when things get hot.

 

[JonnybravoM3]

You have to consider when something happens and be able to list out all the variables to find the solution. Stuff rarely just happens. It's usually the result of something you did. So ask yourself what has recently changed prior to the new "overheating" issue. From my seat all I can do is make observations on what you tell us. From your posts it seemed to me that the temp has been issue since the install of the EFI. This is why I suggest looking at the AFR and timing. Both of those have likely changed since the EFI install. The shop you use is used to modern stuff (high end even super type cars at that based on what you have shown us) where all that is computer controlled automatically. The mechanics are likely not well versed in old Ford tech. That 60's cooling system itself was often challenged just in normal "life". You've added air conditioning and a climate it never saw coming in some regards. Your auto trans also uses the same radiator to keep cool which means it also adds to cooling woes when things hot.

Yes you are absolutely right... actually the car worked perfectly as a carb bar the faulty temp and fuel gauges!

I'm taking her this weekend to another shop that specializes in mustangs and has built several 60s mustangs as well to have a look over everything.

After EFI, I drove the car once only over 2 days... No overheating issues at all, only issue I had was starvation.

So....i took the car back, we installed the Tanks, Inc and internal pump, changed the relevant settings on the fiTech touchscreen, upgraded ignition distributer and coil, and replaced my power steering with new parts including pump due to bad leaks, changed spark plugs and spark plug wires... that's all.

And... that's the story of my life as they say... Collected the car after this additional work and here we are today!

But no I'm gonna take the car to a team with much more experience working on classic mustangs and hope for the best.

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[Horseplay]

Just as a note to remember, the FiTech unit needs to learn its final "programming" which it does over time and across varied driving conditions. I have no idea how long all that takes. I presume it is a while and it probably adjusts even longer as things might change. I will find out myself very soon when the car finally gets out on the road this summer. I would say spring but it looks like that may not happen here this year! During your very limited road time with it I am sure it has never "locked in" to anything and that might be part of what is going on. You aren't using it to control timing are you?

 

[JonnybravoM3]

Just as a note to remember, the FiTech unit needs to learn its final "programming" which it does over time and across varied driving conditions. I have no idea how long all that takes. I presume it is a while and it probably adjusts even longer as things might change. I will find out myself very soon when the car finally gets out on the road this summer. I would say spring but it looks like that may not happen here this year! During your very limited road time with it I am sure it has never "locked in" to anything and that might be part of what is going on. You aren't using it to control timing are you?

Yes exactly... well hope you get on your pony again soon! In contrast to me all this downtime and I'm missing out on amazing spring weather and soon enough its gonna get too hot!

I would say that I am relying on it for timing yes, I haven't done anything else to the car. Is this an issue?

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[Horseplay]

The standard install doesn't have it handling timing. Unless you installed a whole new distributor (modern billet,etc) than I would guess you are not using it for timing. I have read of issues using it for such so my suggestion for now is to avoid doing so. Just bring it up as I suspected timing could be a part of your issue is all.

 

[JonnybravoM3]

The standard install doesn't have it handling timing. Unless you installed a whole new distributor (modern billet,etc) than I would guess you are not using it for timing. I have read of issues using it for such so my suggestion for now is to avoid doing so. Just bring it up as I suspected timing could be a part of your issue is all.

Interesting you say that, thing is car starts perfectly on cue and idles very smoothe... So I honestly think timing is okay.. but I guess worth exploring as well!

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[Boom]

You have AC, small radiator, and both hoses on the passenger side? No wonder you have cooling issues. I would look into the mods to put a bigger radiator in your car, I've read where some of the guys use the 24" that 67+ cars have.

 

[Horseplay]

Stock sized GOOD two row aluminum will handle it fine with adequate air movement (electric fan) and a shroud. To use a wider radiator would require hacking up the core support quite a bit and isn't necessary. A crossflow design is always better but not worth the effort in this case. His is a cruiser with a stock engine. I have run my high compression stroker for extended run times in my garage no less with zero cooling issues. I even tested the cooling capability by shutting off the fan and letting it get hot (200+) to see how she cooled down when switched back on with great results. Came back down almost immediately when the fan was run.

 

[JonnybravoM3]

Car is going to the other shop today. Wish me luck! I'll update the thread accordingly.

You really know you own a classic when all the tow truck drivers in your area start to know you by name.


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[c6fastback]

That is a Toyota coolant , probably red. Not for a Ford .
You should be using the standard green coolant
or the universal coolant .

 

[GypsyR]

These threads worry me. Ford originally designated 192F thermostats for our cars because then and even before then they knew that optimum power and efficiency in such internal combustion engines was to be found when the engine is kept between 195-220F. (It's not just me, GOOGLE IT) So your car is operating at near ideal temperatures even with the AC on and your complaint is what now?

Heat soak is real, that's why the term "heat soak" exists. Ignore temperature measurements made immediately after a heat soak, they mean nothing. As you said, the temperature self-corrects after it runs a minute. Exactly as it should.

I'd hate to be the shop tasked with this one. "My car runs the perfect temperature, make it run too cool." It's an anathema to any good mechanic to be asked to purposely screw up a perfectly good car.

Oh and I personally wouldn't run Toyota coolant. It has no silicates among other things and although very good stuff, it isn't suited to our cars.

 

[Horseplay]

Gypsy brings up a very important point. It should be noted, however, one really nice thing about converting to one of these new modern EFI systems is that by having it control the operation of an electric cooling fan you can almost "dial in" the desired engine operating temp. Running a stock range thermostat and setting the EFI ECU temperature set point to something in the 200 degree range will take all the temp worries away.

 

[JonnybravoM3]

That is a Toyota coolant , probably red. Not for a Ford .
You should be using the standard green coolant
or the universal coolant .

Oh no it's amazing. Many people use it here for their cars including American classics. Works great with our weather.

Otherwise we can use bottled or sweet water here.

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[JonnybravoM3]

These threads worry me. Ford originally designated 192F thermostats for our cars because then and even before then they knew that optimum power and efficiency in such internal combustion engines was to be found when the engine is kept between 195-220F. (It's not just me, GOOGLE IT) So your car is operating at near ideal temperatures even with the AC on and your complaint is what now?

Heat soak is real, that's why the term "heat soak" exists. Ignore temperature measurements made immediately after a heat soak, they mean nothing. As you said, the temperature self-corrects after it runs a minute. Exactly as it should.

I'd hate to be the shop tasked with this one. "My car runs the perfect temperature, make it run too cool." It's an anathema to any good mechanic to be asked to purposely screw up a perfectly good car.

Oh and I personally wouldn't run Toyota coolant. It has no silicates among other things and although very good stuff, it isn't suited to our cars.

Makes sense, but honestly, I eventually drove the car at night (2am), in 80F weather... my buddy was sitting next to me with the handheld touchscreen watching the coolant temp slowly rise from 170 till it reached 212 within about 10min of cruising before I went back home. The needle was also rising slowly towards H.... That's not normal.

I think a new radiator with electric fan will do the trick... summer is coming and temps reach up to 120F here, and I'm gonna wanna use my AC without issues. Will probably also upgrade my alternator to handle all the added load. Remember, my car is a non AC car and I fitted an aftermarket vintage air system. Although my car is stock, I still think this issue is being caused by a system overload potentially.



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[GypsyR]

I might mention that there can be inconsistencies in gauges and sending units. I changed sending units one time and found the new one read 20 degrees differently from the old one. Many many people have changed to aftermarket gauges because it's widely known that the stock ones are woefully inadequate and inaccurate. I see you're still going by yours though. If you don't believe me or pretty much the entirety of information reachable through the internet that running at 212F is good and OK, there's nothing more I can do.

I will say to everybody here that despite what some people are ignorantly doing, DO NOT run phosphate type coolant intended for Asian cars in your older US built classics. Not only is it that coolant not particularly good at anything the chemical composition can be adverse to your gaskets. Improper use of coolant type is a real big issue with people who make their living keeping cars on the road and having to warranty what they do to keep them there. I could care less what random people do. I've seen people swear running straight water is fine. As long as you sell the car to some poor sucker before the radiator clogs up with rust flakes, I guess it might be.
As an example of incorrect coolant interaction, some time ago Ford unhappily discovered that their new latest and greatest company antifreeze meant to last longer than the old green stuff would eat the head gaskets right out of their 4.9 truck engines in about six months. Stuff like that happens all over because of people mixing and matching coolants. At that time Ford was unaware that there was an issue until they found out the hard way. I don't like to find out things like that the hard ans expensive way, but you can certainly do as you like.

If you must use a fancy antifreeze in your old car, try an organic acid tech coolant such as Peak's "Sierra". It's advertised as non-poisonous and such but the real deal is that it's composition can last up to 750,000 miles. The time limit is similar, making it ideal stuff for cars stored long term, like in museums. Toyota's coolant by contrast is good for only 50,000 miles. Yes, we all know of Camry's and such running around with umpteen thousand miles that have never had their coolant changed but that doesn't make it right.
As far as what other people recommend, unless their name is Edward Eaton, I'd be at least skeptical. Ed is the only ISO certified coolant tester in the world at this time. His word is gold, everybody else's, not so much. A majority opinion among people who make their living working with these things is pretty good advice though, and what I'm trying to relay here.

 

[JonnybravoM3]

I'm going by my analogue gauge with a new sending unit and my digital gauge through the Fi-Tech and a small giveaway was some smoke coming from my bonnet as soon as i returned home and parked. Not sure what that was from, but I definitely don't want it to happen again! Coolant was actually boiling and spewing out of the drain tube.

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[GypsyR]

Sounds like you need a new/different/better radiator cap.

 

[Horseplay]

Sounds like you need a new/different/better radiator cap.

I completely respect your opinions but I revert back to my learned position of "what was changed just before something else broke?". Yes, a bad radiator cap can cause overheating but the odds of that failing at the same time the car gets converted over to a new EFI system among other modifications are pretty great. His FiTech unit was indicating an AFR of 14:1. That's pretty lean and we all know lean engines run hotter. Old school way of noticing an engine running lean was to see your headers turning red!
Having just installed such a system on my car I can tell you it bounces around quite a bit as it tries to "learn" the engine and driving habits. I also have some suspicions on where the timing might be set following all the shop work too. I caught myself messing with the timing too much when switching from carb to FiTech to get it fired up and running smoothly. When I went back and checked it with my light I was no where near where it should have been and I ended up working it back as the EFI settled in. I have a hard time believing mechanics who spend their days working on high end luxury cars that plug into sophisticated diagnostic machines have a whole lot of background or even desire to work on our kind of old metal. It will be interesting to see what comes of its visit to this new mechanic.

 

[GypsyR]

Mechanics generally don't drop out of thin air into high end shops, they generally start somewhere a bit lower. But who knows.

I said you need a new radiator cap because by your description of the circumstances that the cap wasn't holding pressure like it is supposed to. Coolant will always spit out the overflow if you are using the original style radiator setup if you overfill it.

I have to take back what I said about the Toyota coolant. Though there are better choices than the Toyota red in particular, apparently the phosphate style IS compatible with our older iron cars and it works very well. The incident with the Ford coolant eating gaskets was because of Ford's version of second generation Dex cool, a non phosphate coolant. The phosphate style coolant is a bit more prone to seeping where the old green coolant's silicates would naturally plug those but it's not a big deal. The preferred retrofit phosphate coolant (apparently) is the dark green version originally designed by/for Mazda. One common brand of readily available coolant like that is Zerex 675130 (purple). The Peak Sierra is still a better overall coolant but evidently the Zerex is very good value for the money.
I may have made an incorrect statement earlier but at least I learned something today. Since I work on my cars a lot I see no point in using Sierra myself as I would be losing it every time I pulled a head or something. Unlike Dex cool the Zerex is at least somewhat compatible with the remains of the old green coolant so you don't HAVE to flush the system completely before swapping. Though it's always a good idea. I never REALLY liked using green coolant that much, I may have to experiment.

 

[JonnybravoM3]

It's never ending learning for us folk I'm afraid! Back when our cars were new, there was a mechanic or service station on every street corner! Now, a dime a dozen. All that said, I really value your input and your wealth of knowledge and experience and thank you for taking time to shed light on this.

The new garage is starting now with a compression/ leak down test then they will go ahead and diagnose the heating issues, and check timing.

Something which was not done before.

Will keep you posted!

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