All Aluminum Radiator: Still Looking

90whtbrd

Registered User
I see that Shepard Auto Parts now has an all aluminum radiator for 94's and up. I am still on the hunt for a radiator for my 90, I was wondering how hard it would be to adapt this radiator to my car. From the picture the only difference I can see is the direction of the overflow nipple and the pin locator at the top PS, the rest looks identical to my 90 radiator. Even with shipping costs this radiator is cheaper than CSF, Spectra, or Pro. Thanks for any advice.
 
Aside from the overflow nipple 180 deg. Out you should be fine. I've done rad swaps the way, 95 sc with a 90 rad. It was years ago I did it, but I don't remember a problem other than the overflow
 
Aside from the overflow nipple 180 deg. Out you should be fine. I've done rad swaps the way, 95 sc with a 90 rad. It was years ago I did it, but I don't remember a problem other than the overflow

Contact nmcbchief he has a perfect stock radiator for cheap!
 
Thanks for the input. From what I can see I will have to fabricate a bracket or two and reroute the over flow hose 180 degrees back to the PS where the overflow tank is on my 90. As far as the stock radiator goes for the 94 and up I think they have plastic tanks, not sure whether they are two row or one. Shepherd Auto's price of 161.62 shipped to my home is by far the cheapest all aluminum radiator two row I've ran across yet. Thanks again for all replies.
 
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radiator

not a lot of fabrication needed. I have an early model alum. radiator in my 95. I just put a spark plug boot on overflow for a 90 degree and routed hose the other way no issues.. only difference is the overflow outlet.. doesn't matter how it gets to tank as long as it does
 
The top of the radiator on the PS of the 94 and up has a pin locator, my 90 has a bracket with a rubber bushed eye and bolt so I think I will have to make a bracket at that point to accept the pin locator on the 94 and up radiator. I don't want to cut and reweld anything voiding the warranty. The only other possible problem may be the shroud at the DS top, it may require some mod.
 
After seeing this thread, and since the factory rad in my 90 sprung a leak, I figured for the $175 it cost I would give this shepard radiator a try. It just showed up today, and my initial reaction is NOT A GOOD ONE! The welds are extremely sloppy, the area around the weld was not cleaned up at all, and looking in the lower hose outlet, you can see the inside of where a bracket for the intercooler bracket was welded on, and you can see that the weld has hardly any penetration. I know that for under $200 for an all aluminum rad, you can't expect it to be perfect, but I've bought Summit racing's generic radiators before for other cars for less money, and the quality on those is ten times better than this. My plan is to install it tomorrow, and if it doesn't leak, then I'll run it, but if it leaks I'll be getting my money back and just brazing my stock one where it started to leak. Regardless, I would advise anyone looking for a rad to go elsewhere.
 
The Shepard rad is working well for me! And I got mine for 85 plus shipping.:D I lowered my fan temps and the rad keeps the temp gauge at the N even in these 90*+ temps. Car is stock except for my fan temp, MAF and fuel table recalibration.

Painted mine black to match the factory look.
 
I hope mine does too. I would definitely prefer to not have to deal with it again. Did yours look like this when it showed up?





 
As I remember the welds were pretty rough looking but not sure if they were quite that bad. I know the steel IC frame was rusty. I'll see what I can see on mine. Think I've had it for a couple years now.

That was another reason I painted it so it would be prettier.
 
I agree the welds are rough looking. I am going to install mine this weekend and it better seal. The selling point for me was not only the price but the lifetime warranty and 2 row construction. I should have mentioned in my first post that there is or was a promo code for $15.00 off purchases over $129.00 or $149.00 not sure which or when it expires.
 
Well the shepard rad is in the car. Total install from start to finish took me about 3 hours, including having to remove my KW DIC to get the rad in and out. In addition to the overflow nipple facing the wrong way for the earlier style cars, the fitment problems with putting this rad in an earlier car are the passenger side rad mount is different, and the IC bracket did not fit properly. I don't know if the IC mount issue is because of the different year application, or just poor design, but not one of the existing holes in the bracket lined up with the bolt-holes for it in the rad. One was close, but still had to be enlarged for everything to fit, and all the others required new holes entirely, and there was about 2" of the bottom of the bracket that had to be cut off because it would have hit the aluminum part of the rad. It took some measuring, and assembling/disassembling the rad and IC bracket about 3 times to get everything marked out, drilled properly, and fitted together. Once it was all together, I went to test fit it in the car, and the driver's side mounting bracket was about 1/2" too far to the outside, so I had to cut that down to slide the rubber mount closer in towards the rad, and that was solved. The passenger side mount is a completely different style where there is a bracket with a bushing that slides over a dowel on the rad, and then the bracket bolts to the rad support. Luckily, I happened to have a couple of those brackets laying around from parting out other tbirds, and the bolt hole is in the same place on both the earlier and later rad supports, so that part was easy. The next thing I noticed was that the fan doesn't sit flush on the new rad like it did on the original one, and there was about a 1/2" gap along the bottom, so I pulled the fan back off, used some foam tape (meant for installing a pickup truck cap) between the fan and the rad, then re-installed the fan. Once all that was done, all that was left was to extend the overflow hose, so I found a piece of pipe laying around the shop that was the right size and had an almost 90 degree bend in it and used that and some extra hose to extend the overflow hose, filled it up with coolant, and we are good to go. On the ride home, the car does run notably cooler. I have a 180 t-stat in the car, and driving home the needle was just below the N, whereas with the old copper rad it would usually sit right in the middle of the O. No leaks so far, so I guess regardless of how the welds look, they are doing their job. All in all, 3 hours and $175 is better than 1 hour and $600 for a Griffin, so I guess I'm satisfied. I probably wouldn't buy another one, and would look at other options hoping to find something better, but if you have patience, a measuring tape, and a drill, you can make this rad work in an early car without having to do any welding on aluminum or anything crazy, so it is an option for people who don't mind putting a little time into it.
 
heres what im going with

http://www.southwestspeed.com/?sec=...rs&ssub=!Southwest Speed Radiators&sssub=Ford

This is the radiator I will be using a 19x29x3 I got a fmic so I got the extra space

U can maybe try the 19x22x3 that should fit with a stock IC or a double

Downside is u need to make mountings for fan
No trans cooler intergrated either
But the price is awesome !! And the quality looks great

This is what nickelman60 runs and he recommended this to me his car stays cool at all times


Pic is how the radiator looks on keiths car
I think he said his is a 19x24?x3 or 19x26x3
One of those two can't remember
 
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Ive not been the happiest with my radiator express all aluminum ! I'm about to pit a stock radiator in and compare temps! It was fine until a 95f day with the ac on and ran way to hot for my liking looks as if the tanks are smaller than an oem radiator too
 
http://www.southwestspeed.com/?sec=...rs&ssub=!Southwest Speed Radiators&sssub=Ford

This is the radiator I will be using a 19x29x3 I got a fmic so I got the extra space

U can maybe try the 19x22x3 that should fit with a stock IC or a double

Downside is u need to make mountings for fan
No trans cooler intergrated either
But the price is awesome !! And the quality looks great

This is what nickelman60 runs and he recommended this to me his car stays cool at all times


Pic is how the radiator looks on keiths car
I think he said his is a 19x24?x3 or 19x26x3
One of those two can't remember

I saw that too, but I remember him saying that he had to have the brackets made and welded on. I can't weld aluminum, and this car is my daily driver, so I needed to be able to install it in one shot, not be mocking it up, taking it out, bringing it to someone to fab and weld the brackets, and put it all back together, so I kept looking. The lack of a trans cooler wouldn't matter for me since my car is a 5-speed, but aside from that it is easy enough to just run an external cooler, which everyone with an auto should be doing anyway. Come to think of it, if someone on here who can weld aluminum wanted to buy those radiators, TIG on the brackets, and start selling them as bolt-in all aluminum radiators, I bet they would make some good money. The $600 for the Griffin is ridiculous, but I definitely would have paid $300-350 for a bolt-in all aluminum rad!
 
I saw that too, but I remember him saying that he had to have the brackets made and welded on. I can't weld aluminum, and this car is my daily driver, so I needed to be able to install it in one shot, not be mocking it up, taking it out, bringing it to someone to fab and weld the brackets, and put it all back together, so I kept looking. The lack of a trans cooler wouldn't matter for me since my car is a 5-speed, but aside from that it is easy enough to just run an external cooler, which everyone with an auto should be doing anyway. Come to think of it, if someone on here who can weld aluminum wanted to buy those radiators, TIG on the brackets, and start selling them as bolt-in all aluminum radiators, I bet they would make some good money. The $600 for the Griffin is ridiculous, but I definitely would have paid $300-350 for a bolt-in all aluminum rad!

Definitely ! And same here my SC is supposed to be my daily driver :/ and
Well I can't weld aluminum either
But somehow I will make brackets and make it work
Because I cannot afford a 600 griffin even if I wanted to
And I heard alot of fmic overheating stories so i refused myself to install the stock rad back in there pkus I like the idea of being alot bigger and all aluminum
Maybe ill just make like some sheet metal straps that keep it from moving and figure out the fan as well once its here ill see how it will work

Yes I dont worry on the cooler been using an aftermarket one for over a year and a half

I hope it works out if I make it work out ill post the updates and maybe someone can benefit if they wanna try it as well
 
Well I got the new radiator installed over the weekend, but it took me a little longer than 3 hours ( my hat's off to you MadMikeyL, but hey I work slow because I work cheap lol ). I have to ditto everything MadMikeyL posted about installing this radiator in an early model SC. The only thing I did different was to run extra hose from the over flow down the bellows to a 90 degree fitting and joining the stock hose. I have yet to run it because the over flow tank looked kinda nasty inside so I filled it with vinegar to clean it out and I am waiting for the thermostat gasket to come so I can reverse flush the block before filling with coolant. Other than the look of the three top bracket bolt heads showing I have no complaints yet, I think I see some button head allens in my future.
 
That looks way better than the supplied bolts, but I think I am going to look for some button heads that are lower profile so the side bolts can be replaced as well and be as flush to the bracket as possible.
 
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