[bcole41507]

Hello everyone. I have a 69 Nova SS with a 454 and a 4 speed. It has a small block radiator in it. I have a 3 core in storage from a 71 Chevelle Big Block that I restored a few years ago. I want to install this into my Nova. However, it does NOT have the mounting brackets on each side. Will this radiator fit my Nova with the correct mounting brackets? If so, then where can I find these? Thanks.

 

[Big Dave]

Camaro and Nova cars used a fixed (welded) bottom plate and a removable top plate to sandwich the radiator in place. They where not bolted from the sides of the radiator after 1967.

The second issue with the Chevelle radiator may be it's size. It may be (I really don't know; but a tape measure will tell you) too tall to be sandwiched between the top plate and the bottom plate.

If so the bottom mounting point can be cut off and lowered by fabricating (welding in additional steel or sheet metal) a mount.

I did this with my Impala when I reused the big block aluminum Griffin radiator out of my pick-up truck that was two inches taller than the stock Impala radiator. I welded in a four inch wide piece of angle iron and mounted the lower radiator mount to the angle iron by welding everything. In retrospect I would recommend using aluminum angle iron and bolting it all together with aircraft grade aluminum bolts, as the mess I made added unnecessary weight far forward in the car which isn't what you want to do. At the time I was just trying to get the car on the road, and wasn't thinking very far ahead with what I wanted to do with the car.

Big Dave