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My Build — Radiator and Tranny Cooler Install

• CATEGORIES: Biscuit This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

While building my last jeep, I remember the difficulty of making the radiator fit.  I believe I finally used a pinto radiator I had laying around and, fortunately, had a hood that allowed the radiator to sit just barely above the grille. With that experience in mind, I've been puzzling through how I wanted to deal with the radiator for a while. 

This weekend I finally got to installing my radiator and tranny cooler.  Selecting a radiator was the first challenge.  I had planned to use the radiator from the CJ-5 I bought last year, but I couldn't make it fit (I ended up selling that radiator).  Then I found a brand new $15 chev radiator that was pretty small off of craigslist.  I purchased that radiator, but it turned out that wouldn't fit either.  Finally, I broke down and purchased a 15" high and 26" wide Griffin Aluminum radiator from Doug Herbert (it was about $30 cheaper than Summit).  That was the shortest radiator they sold and it fit perfect … well, almost perfectly as I had to cut into my cross member to make a little more room.


At the junkyard the other day I picked up some rubber radiator mounts (out of a Ford truck) that turned out to fit perfectly on the bottom of the radiator.  For the top, I had to grind some rubber radiator mounts slightly to make them fit.

First, I cut the front cross member, making it a little slimmer.  Next, I added bottom mounts to the right and left side of the frame.  These will hold the bottom radiator mounts.

Once the mounts were in place, I built a framework (neither the radiator nor the cooler came with mounting plates) that would hold the tranny cooler and the radiator in place.  I wanted the tranny cooler to rest in front of the radiator and be centered with the grille.  I also wanted the tranny cooler and radiator to be easily removable, yet capable of enduring racing conditions. 

To hold the radiator in place, I build a bracket that sits atop the radiator and can be bolted to the frame work on one side and then, if necessary, can use CJ-5 like rods to bolt from the cowl to the radiator bracket. 

Here's everything together prior to painting it. 

Here's everything together and painted.

 

3 Comments on “My Build — Radiator and Tranny Cooler Install

  1. mmdeilers Post author

    LOL .. plenty of bling here — so much sun that it kept me from being able to take pictures of the completed underneath areas of the fenders.

  2. Anonymous

    looks nice, i didn’t even see this posted until now. i was looking for a 3 cross core for my 4.7 stroker xj. ended up having a all metal custom built local for about 325. i thought my electric fan went out cause wasn’t turning on, pretty cool runner. it only get warm enough with ac on and i live in redding,ca. it’s 110 right now at 6pm. anyway, your project looks like it’s coming along.

    james
    530.941.4399

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