Hi Bob, I hope you take this question in the right way as I am not trying provoke you . That being said , here goes . The day your Healey was built and brand new , do you think that it was prone to overheating when either driven hard or idling in heavy traffic ? Being a mechanic my whole life , I remember when these cars were new and riding the streets and don't remember them having constant overheating problems . Just wanted to get your opinion . Thanks , BobbyR
Me? Provoked? Nah ... just misunderstood
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My BJ8 has an engine freshly rebuilt by an excellent mechanic (170PSI+ on all cylinders), an uprated 4-row (I think) or Excel-cored radiator, a Texas Cooler fan, Pertronix Ignitor and is as well-tuned as I can get it. It seldom overheats at speed; the highest I've seen is pulling up the long grade on I15 from California into Nevada on a warm (90degF) day. Last I did this, I saw close to 200degF on my (calibrated/adjusted) temp gauge. Highest I've seen is 212degF pulling up the Panamint Mountains out of Death Valley on a 115degF day (we had to turn the heater on full blast to keep from boiling; there were several newer cars on the side of the road with their bonnets up). My BN2 is bone stock except for an uprated radidiator and Pertronix ignition, and behaves more-or-less like the BJ8, but I haven't driven it nearly as far as the BJ8. Timing on both cars is set to spec with an advance meter.
My biggest concern is stop/slow traffic, where the temp gauge rises steadily until I get moving again, then it cools down quickly. I had a seven-bladed flex fan on the BJ8 for a while and it helped in slow/stop traffic, but was so noisy I finally replaced it with the Texas Cooler. From all I've heard and read, on this forum and the email list, this problem is common. The consensus it that the Big Healeys don't get enough airflow through the engine compartment, hence the mods like 'scoops' in front of and baffles to the sides of the radiator, hood louvers, side vents, electric pusher fans, etc.
My take is these cars have always had this issue, they were perhaps more 'accepted' as we didn't expect as much performance and reliability from cars of that era and took overheating, etc. in stride. The early Mustangs were known to overheat as well, and our '65 behaves much like my Healeys. A Healey owner on the email list informed me that he solved the problem in an early Mustang he bought for his daughter with an aluminum radiator; I may take this approach as early Mustangs aren't all that rare, I'm not that concerned about originality, and it it really needs a brake upgrade as well (my dad was a factory rep for Ford and confirmed these were known issues with these cars). My '96 Ford Ranger--with the 4.0L 'Cologne' engine ('German steel')--had a defective thermostat from the factory and never reached running temperature until I replaced the thermostat (which still bounces around erratically).
I didn't own a Healey when these cars were new--although the seeds of desire were planted--but I recall hearing about numerous issues with most British cars of the period (and still hear them occasionally, though my BJ8 has over 200K hard miles on it and only stranded me once, when an otherwise well-built water pump blew its bellows and two replacements from a usual parts supplier were defective). But, to answer your question, based on my experiences and other on this forum--overheating issues are perhaps second only to oil and tire discussions--I believe overheating issues are innate to Healeys and a lot of older cars, they just weren't noticed at the time (but overheating was a common problem). My dad told me that he handled a lot of customer complaints about 'oil pressure gauges that moved up and down'--your average owner didn't understand that oil pressure at idle should be lower than that at 3,000 RPM--and this, along with cost, was why we got nothing but 'idiot lights' for many years. I am suspicious that in all my more modern cars--2000 Lincoln, 2008 and 2019 Mustangs--the temp goes goes quickly to the exact center of the range and stays there (are the cooling system and thermostats
really that good?). Have the manufacturers really mastered heat control in modern engines, or have they just programmed their ECUs to show "all's well" no matter what? I was pleased to see my new Mustang has both oil pressure and engine vacuum gauges that behave like they should but, ironically, I'm too busy playing with all the electronic crap to notice
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On thing that could explain the difference for 'way back when' and now is that new engines, with clean blocks and coolant passages, were less inclined to overheat. But, I think most of us have rebuilt our engines at least once and probably had the blocks hot-tanked.
How does your car behave in Jersey? Last time I was there, probably 15 years ago, it got pretty hot and humid and you had your share of crappy traffic.
ps. Keoke makes good points that I hadn't considered before. I don't recall traffic jams 'back in the day' like we seem to have daily now.