chaikwa

Started a new project today; rebuilding the old 87 Ford Mud truck. I think it has somewhere around 12" of lift and lockers front and rear. The rest I'm going to have to re-fabricate to make it right.

One question I have for any of you that may know, is I want to re-locate the radiator behind the cab. I took the body off today and have plans to build a roll-cage sort of arrangement and leave it at that, so the radiator will be out in the open. All the arrangements I've seen like this have the radiator tilted, top towards the back of the cab. Is there a reason for this? Also, which side of the radiator should the electric fan be placed on? Does it push or pull the air thru the radiator?

I want to locate it here to keep the mud away from it as much as possible. As it is now, (up front behind the grill), it gets PACKED with mud and the belt driven fan has all it's blades broken off due to them hitting water/mud at speed. I think locating it behind the cab will keep most of the stuff away from it.

Open to ideas, suggestions or websites where I might gain a little more knowledge of what I want to do.

THANKS!

cbrahs

most of them tilt the radiator just because it is easy and follows the rear down tubes of the cage. on the class 1 buggy I helped build, we did the fan on the outside of the radiator and it pulled air but our radiator also had air flow thru the cab of the car.

chaikwa

Thanks cbrahs!

No one else?

12valve@heart

You might PM DNRCustoms. He's got the yellow banana.

I don't have any experience to lend you but I'm always ready to theorize, as long as you remember that the theory is only worth what you paid for it.

I suspect that the angled radiator behind the cab may be to allow a taller radiator to fit in the given height available (thinking of keeping the rear view unobstructed). As far as the electric fan goes, I'd suspect that you may want to mount it on the most protected side of the radiator to protect it from some of the mud and I'd think that you'd want it blowing from the most protected side to avoid sucking the mud into the fins. You may even want to build a mud deflector/radiator protector to help keep the mud off of it. Hope this helps.

chaikwa

It does! Thanks!

rockcrawler304

I helped build a class 8 truck and we did the same for the radiator. Had it laying down on the cage and the main reason is just for ease of installation. No need to build additional brackets to stand it up. We then used as much aluminum tubing to run the water through the cab to the engine. That was a pain but worth the effort when finished. Make sure to insulate it!!
We ran the fans on the outside to pull air through but also had no windshield so it got air flow thru the cab and also was running at much higher speeds than a mud truck.

kthiemann

There is a guy over on dodge ramcharger central that took a ramcharger frame and made it into just a roll cage with no body....which is what i think you want to do at least with the cab on your truck...I think his username is caged dodge or something like that. I'm pretty sure he had his radiator mounted towards the back of the thing with his cooling fans set to suck the air thru the radiator. I haven't been over on that site for a while now so am not sure if he is still around but I think he did a pretty good write up on it that might still be in the archives.

Hvytrkmech

Pictures!!!!!!

chaikwa

Thanks everyone! And I'll let Michael post pics of it because he's a member here now!

mudsforme

Hey Tim,

Here's one of my favorite pics of my mudtruck in action around the farm & stuck!





Mike

mudsforme

Here's an action shot of the mighty mudder...simple but effective to tackle the mud!

cbrahs

can't really see the radiator with the spare in the way but this is the car we built last year







fly baby fly

mudsforme

12" of lift (suspension & body), Warn 12,000 lb winch in the Enforcer Bumper, Lock-Rite lockers all the way around, 5:11 gears, 39.5 Super Swamper Boggers.

mudsforme

Thanks for posting.

Mike

mudsforme

Clean Mud Truck