coolant consumption

What color, if any is the exhaust smoke? White could indicate coolant burning(steam).

Hello Robert, I’m happy to hear that you purchased that nice ’29 Roadster.

The first thing I would do is to re-torque the cylinder head. These flathead engines with a wide head, a thick ‘copper sandwich’ gasket need to be re-torqued at least 3-4 times before the head gasket has stopped ‘relaxing’ or compressing. If the head is not torqued tight enough, some coolant can be drawn in and burnt, or some compression gasses can be pushed past the head gasket into the coolant and cause excess coolant to be pushed out the overflow.

If you are running pure water in your car that is a step in the right direction, but If you are using distilled water, I’d add an anti-corrosive agent like PennCool 3000, or similar for an unpressurized cooling system. Distilled water is more ‘active’ in corroding the parts of the cooling system, some form of anti-corrosive should be added.

If you are running antifreeze, it tends to foam when run in an unpressurized system. My cars will hardly use any coolant all summer long on water. But in the fall when I switch over to antifreeze, if I take a car for a drive, I almost always get foaming and loss of antifreeze/coolant.

Some of our cooling systems take a bit of TLC to get sorted out. Typically, a Pierce water pump has more flow capacity than the radiator, even when the radiator is new. What happens then, is the water pump pulls a negative pressure on the bottom of the radiator, so much that in the cars with a long rubber hose from the bottom of the radiator to the water pump inlet, this hose MUST have a coil spring inside the hose to keep it from being sucked flat. Your ’29 should have two short hoses and a pipe in the middle between the radiator and the water pump.

Once the radiator has some use, it tends to collect rust flakes, water pump grease that gets past the pump’s bushings, and hard water deposits with some well water. These tend to clog up or at least restrict the water flow through the radiator, The pump’s abilities don’t change, so it pulls even more of a negative pressure on the radiator.

The shaft of the water pump, the hoses and hose clamps can let air be sucked into the cooling system yet NOT leak water out when sitting and not running.

I’ve personally experienced this, on a tour in my first Pierce, it was using a lot of water, and people behind me told me they could see it discharging out the overflow under the car. I talked with a knowledgable guy with my same model Pierce, and he asked if my lower hose clamps were tight. I thought he was nuts.. But two of the 4 hose clamps took about 1/4 to 1/2 a turn to get really snug, and the car stopped pushing water and foam out the overflow. A worn pump shaft or poor/old packing can also allow air to be drawn in past the packing.

What I think happens is that the air is pulled into the cooling system, it is mixed with the water by the water pump then the air/water mix or foam is pumped through the engine, where it is heated enough that some of the air bubbles become steam. This mix takes up a lot more volume than pure water, so the system is too full, and the excess goes out the overflow tube.

Some people have discovered that the engine has created a lot of rust flakes, even if it is a fresh overhaul, there will usually still be some pieces in the engine.. These tend to be deposited in the top radiator tank, and block some of the radiator tubes. You can ‘sweep’ the top tank with a magnet on a flexible wand, and see if you pick up any pieces.

There are two ‘favorite’ methods of catching rust pieces in out old cars: one is a filter called the ‘Gano-Filter’ it is a plastic tube with a cone shaped screen or filter that is put in the inlet to the radiator at the top hose connection.

Or, use the ‘footy’ hose ‘socks’ or the foot end of a panty hose, poke most of the foot into the inlet pipe on the upper tank of the radiator, but keep an inch or so outside the tube, Roll it over the outside of the inlet tube, then push the rubber radiator hose over it to hold it in place, Clamp the hose as is normally done. This footy from a ladies’ hose works very well, and often can be seen through the radiator cap/neck. If visible, the sock can be inspected to see if it has caught a lot of rust flakes, and needs to be replaced or cleaned.

If your radiator has a lot of rust flakes already, a reverse-flushing will blow most of them out the inlet or neck of the top tank.

I hope the above information helps you sort out the coolant loss you are experiencing.

Greg Long

Robert,

The PenCool 3000 additive for distilled water which Greg has mentioned above can be purchased at any Kenworth / Peterbilt (or the equivalent) heavy truck dealer parts counter. One small bottle treats 4 gallons of water.

Good luck,

Stu Blair

http://penray.com/products/pencool-3000-with-stabil-aid-cooling-system-treatment/

Hi Robert, I would use 50-55 ftlbs. You can post that question on this thread and see what other’s say.

Pierce did not publish torque specs, nor did many if any other car manufacturers prior to I think the late ’30’s.

The pattern is from the center out, I use the torque wrench to break loose each bolt, just enough to free it from being stuck, usually about 1/8 turn, no more than 1/4 turn, then reverse and tighten to 50#. do the three down the middle, actually it’s 4, since there are bolts on each side of the distributor. Then go to the next row of 3, either left or right of center, repeat the break loose and re-tighten on each, then go to the row on the opposite side of center. This left-right pattern is not exactly what is published in the Motor’s manuals in the mid and late 30’s, the published pattern has a left-right criss-cross pattern working from the center out.

It’s hard to explain, but since this is a re-torque, the criss-cross pattern is not critical. It is important on a new installation of a new gasket.

IF you find the bolts break loose at say 40# you can bring them back to 45#, then once the whole head’s pattern is done, go back and do them again at 50 or 55 ftlbs. The main idea is to bring the holding pressure on the head gasket up gently in steps, getting all the bolts to work in unison.

My ’25 S80 touring car had had the head gasket replaced in ’98, by the previous owner, I bought the car in june of 2014, and toured with it at the ’14 national meet in Warwick RI. On the third day, I noticed that I had started to get water out the overflow on long slow hills. I found the head nuts at 25-35#, and on those engines I use 45-50# torque. Torquing the head stopped the water loss out the overflow.

The reason distilled water is bad, is that when distilled, all the impurities on the water molecules are eliminated, this leaves the Oxygen molecule able to react with metals, and creates accelerated corrosion. I use just regular drinking water sold in gallons, or if at home my own well water, which is pretty good water. If you do use distilled, add some anti corrosive additive just to be sure you are not creating additional corrosion in the system..

Greg

Iam surprised that a water pump that causes cavitating doesn’t get a mention here >>>>>GEOFF MARTIN

My Series 33 experience coincides with the comments by Dave, Geoff, and Jak. Correct water pump grease solved the cavitation issue and flow restriction kept the flow at a pace so it’s not getting backed up and thrown out the overflow. A third complicating issue was a bad point which threw the timing off creating heating issues under load. New points and reset timing fixed that. Now it runs right in the middle of the motormeter where it should. Turned out to be one of those somewhat vexing multi-issue deals.

Robert…….remember……drive it like you stole it!