[Andygears]

In my 1978 Dodge MB300 small motor home, class C, I was wondering if someone has replaced the stock radiator/clutch fan setup with either/or an electric fan and one of the new “cheap” alloy radiators and shroud and how well it worked, reliability, etc.
On the same subject, Summit offers a water pump with 30% more capacity, advertised. My pump is old and probably sat for a while, do the vanes rust off these pumps because they’re stamped steel?
My van runs OK down the hiway at about thermostat temp of 180-190 but pull off to get gas or stuck in traffic it goes up significantly.

thanks for comments

 

[old-school-ram-van]

I was having a strange heating issue. Though maybe it was the gauge but it wasn't. I changed the water pump, clutch fan, and thermostat, rad cap and it fix it. I have a 1990 b350 campervan. You can start with the thermostat and cap they are cheap.....

 

[Andygears]

I was having a strange heating issue. Though maybe it was the gauge but it wasn't. I changed the water pump, clutch fan, and thermostat, rad cap and it fix it. I have a 1990 b350 campervan. You can start with the thermostat and cap they are cheap.....

I’ve changed the thermostat & housing, 180 degree, new cap. I have no fan shroud and suspect that the fan may be too far from the radiator with the fan clutch. It also has a AC condenser that covers the radiator out in front of the rad. support. I removed the grille to see if there was room to add an electric fan out front. Not with the current setup.
So I was hoping someone with an older van had done an aluminum rad. Conversion and could post pictures and advise. But thanks for responding, were the vanes rusted away on your old water pump? My ’78 has a ’72 engine so I’m wondering about that too.

Andygears

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Gotta get a shroud. Start with a fresh version of what the factory put in it before changing to anything "modern".

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Even the rubber like crap that keeps the air from diverting below the rad behind the bumper will help.

 

[Andygears]

I don‘t have any of shielding rubber crap underneath but went to a pull & save junky yesterday and got a nice 2 piece shroud off a later dodge van. Bought a new fan clutch. I’m going to have to pull the radiator to adapt the shroud but it looks like it frames my core perfectly. I currently have an 18” fan, 5 blade. My service book says the fan should be 20” and 7 blade. I’ll put this stuff I have together and see. Thanks for responding.

 

[Andygears]

Got things together without pulling the radiator. There were 4 studs welded into my radiator frame, the upper 2 kinda lined up with slots in the new shroud so I made those work by turning down coupling nuts and drilled new holes in the lower. Razor knife made a little pulley clearance. With the new fan clutch installed and running there is quite a lot of air exiting the back of the shroud.

The test ride yielded good results, gauge read just into the running range toward the Cold, a slight bit cooler. I was running an errand so after a couple miles I shut off, 5 min, and when I restarted temp was at half on the run range. Previously it would have been hot just past the range without AC, I ran AC whole time.

My initial post resulted in nobody posting that “XXX” aluminum radiator and electric fan worked great for ’70’s Dodge vans. Surely someone’s tried it, any bad results?

 

[Andygears]

Still wondering who has done an aluminum radiator conversion on a ‘70s van with what results. The Florida heat this year is tough. I’m not overheating but would like better cooling especially in traffic. Wondering if maybe a flex fan with no fan clutch would help.