Well it's been prob 25 - 30 years since I had a Vega(orange 75 W 327 muncie) and never thought I would work on one again but browsing Craiges one day and ..............
So the theme is a street car with strengthened,updated,modded parts.....
So far I have torn the car down quite a bit and have been jumping from point to point,so when I complete one area or system on it,I will post the work done.I think I have finished the cooling system so I,m going to post a lengthy proses on what I did because there has been much toil on how to cool your Vega.
The first thing I did was to trim out the support as much as I could with out weakening it.I have come to the conclusion that it really does not matter on a Vega if the radiator gets inserted into-through the support or sits on the inside of it like factory because the overall dimensions are almost the SAME.
There is an advantage to going into the support and have the radiator flush with the inside of it for engine clearance and also being able to mount an electric fan assembly directly to the support also,so this is the option I chose.
So I trimmed as much could and welded and ground any open seams.When I was done this is the dimension I ended up with:
More tomorrow.
OK next I made a cardboard rad to verify the fit
Then got some tools out to square the opening.
And straighten the top,I used the big Milwaukee saws all to cut the opening,pretty straight but finished it off with square straight edge and grinder.
Fits well,now for some brackets.Notice the bumper brackets are saved and the box passes by them but I am not using the inner bumper leaf spring assemblies and am making aluminum brackets so I do not know if those spring assemblies will clear.Since the radiator will be flush mounted to the inside of the support,I added a mounting flange at the bottom.On the drivers side there is an existing hole that is used and on the pass side a bracket is added that needs to be formed at an angle to match the support and drilled.