ClassicCar

I recently bought a 1969 Firebird (my dream car) and have been working to rebuild it. She had been sitting for a few years and is a little rough, but I love the challenge! She started up after a few adjustments and replacements, however it overheated in a matter of 5 minutes. After doing days of troubleshooting and replacing almost everything dealing with my cooling system (Hoses, water pump, thermostat, flush radiator), I couldn't find the solution. I even broke down and purchased a 16" electric fan kit off ebay.com ($75). Mounted the fan and boy does she pull a ton of air. Twice as much as my old mechanical clutch fan. Anyways, she still overheated within 10 minutes sitting in idle (102 degree Oklahoma summer). I did a bunch of head scratching and a pulled out an infrared thermometer to get down to business. Turns out that the only part of my radiator that was getting cooled was the 16" where my new fan covered. I did a little more research on the newer cars we had sitting in my driveway and noticed that they both had electric fans and shrouds that covered the entire core of the radiator. I did a ton of research online and more than not people with classic cars don't seem to think a fan shroud is that important. A ton of people say they have never had one...So I broke down and decided to make my own custom fan shroud..the second image is my custom shroud. Took me 2 1/2 hours and clamped it all together to give it a test before I painted it and made it look pretty. It was 95 degrees and I was in my garage sitting in idle and to my surprise...the car hardly got past 195 degrees!!! :woohoo:

All I can say is fan shroud success!