Quote:
Originally Posted by pfilean
Good interesting stuff b-man - keep it coming.
As to the cooling tubes - are you sure those are originals or someone's attempt at a repop? I thought I had heard before that the originals would rust out with time hence would not be stainless. I would have to recheck my old information regarding galvanic corrosion. If I remember correctly stainless in contact with steel would cause galvanic corrosion of the steel. So I would expect the factory originals to be steel and not stainless to prevent such corrosion. Maybe that is not true for cast iron in contact with stainless. But if yours are a homemade repop out of stainless maybe that would explain the poor fit and crushed area at the inlet end.
|
I'd say these tubes are either originals, an OEM replacement part or an aftermarket equivalent from back in the day.
Steel tubes would have failed miserably in this application, the use of antifreeze with corrosion inhibitors wasn't common back then. These stainless tubes exhibit absolutely no corrosion. There's a thin coating of rust deposits on the tubes which is typical of what you'd expect to find inside the entire water jacket of any old cast iron engine.
Hasty assembly is what caused the damage to these tubes, they're not home-brewed. They're clearly a precision part made from very thin stainless sheetmetal with a folded seam.
I think whoever did the tube install didn't realize that they didn't necessarily need to fit flush with the opening in the head, they could have left them sticking out by up to 1/4" and still have the water inlets attach and function just fine. However they clearly hammered in the last bit, crushing the back end of the tubes a little and really messing up the front ends.
As I previously stated, there's not a lot of information or pictures available of these tubes. So here's a bit of first-hand info to digest.
