Why won't the new radiator support bottom fit 65's?
 

We are putting a '65 GTO together that is currently a non-AC car that will have AC. Went to the catalog to order out the P119VX bottom piece and was bummed to see it was listed as only fitting 66-67 A-bodies. Must be a pretty severe difference? I figured that since we would be sawing the complete bottom off that it would adapt fairly easily to the remaining portion of the core support.

So wondering why won't it fit, and is there any plans for adapting it to the '65 support?

I ran into a similar problem on my 66 (car ended up with a non ac core support somehow). I bought the radiator from cold case and they offered an adapter to fit an AC radiator in a non Ac core support. They may offer it for a 65. We ended up just cutting the bottom of the core support and dropping it 2”.

What does NOT fit the 1965, is the AC rad support that we made. The adapter will fit 1965 cars as well. However, caution should be taken on this upgrade. It is not a simple bolt in bottom. You have to remove a lot of welds to remove the old bottom piece and the new one has to get welded in pretty precisely. The nice part is that once it's done, you will have a very original looking AC radiator support!

So what you are saying is that the P119VX support kit will fit the 65 A-body the same as it fits the 66-67? If so, the Ames catalog isn't correct in limiting the fit to only 66-67?

Yes, that is correct. When we first came out with the system, it was a bit confusing for our dealers being that the support only fit 66-67 and we also may have been a little less confident in the early days but we got in an original 65 AC support and a reproduction 66-67 non-ac support and saw that only the main top of the 1965 support is different. The bottom is exactly the same. I suppose we never noticed that Ames hadn't updated the catalog.

Thank you. I'll pass the information on to the '65 owner. I know that the addition of the deeper radiator really helped my '67 -- well the deeper Cold Case radiator. Suspect a major part of the additional cooling was probably that addition.

Well, actually it does. And the problem is the tube that fits into the radiator support, this is the one that has the bend in it. The problem is that there is a different straight part that fits into the frame behind the radiator, so you will have to cut it and fit the radiator support, and then turn the hole that you cut, into the same shape as the tube that goes into the radiator support.