Another factor in the older cars' tendency to overheat was lower
compression ratio (as was necessitated by lower octane fuel.
A lower compression engine rejects a lot more heat both to the exhaust
and to the water jackets.
Greg
Graham&Joan Hilder wrote:
Interesting to read everyone's recollections! I can add that when I
was young, my Dad had British cars from the early 1950s, things like
the Hillman Minx and the Standard Vanguard, and I recall that in
winter he'd sometimes stuff a wad of newspapers down between the
grille and the radiator, to speed the warmup on a cold morning. His
workplace was only about a couple of miles away from home, and on a
freezing frosty or foggy morning before the sun was high the car would
never warm up otherwise.
I also recall that in my earlier years, say the 1950s and 60s and
maybe into the 70s, it was common in NZ to see cars stopped at the
roadside with bonnets up and drivers standing by, waiting with a
handful of rags and a bottle of water , to top up the boiled-over
radiator when things had cooled down a bit. In NZ we had a great many
old British cars in those days and I suppose most of them had pretty
tiny radiators (made for freezing English weather, perhaps?) that
couldn't really cope with an NZ summer, especially on a long hill or
in a slow traffic jam. (Also, those cars were mostly low-powered
engines and with only three-speed gearboxes a long hill could mean a
long slow crawl up in second gear - lots of overheating potential.)
And of course no cars of that variety had electric cooling fans either.
Such cars wouldn't have had sealed pressurised cooling systems either,
as Les Singh mentioned, nor antifreeze in the water, so their boiling
point was much lower than in today's cars too. The first car I had
with such a system was a Morris 1100 of the early 60s, and such a
system was quite advanced for a British car of those years. (The old
1100 also had disc brakes in front - that was pretty special too!).
We don't know how lucky we are now!
Best regards,
Graham H, NZ (Alfasud, GTV, 156) http://www.avast.com
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