Back in December 2020 my original Harrison radiator sprung a leak at the core, upper tank seam. I removed the radiator and took it to a radiator manufacturer and repair company in Miami. I wanted to preserve the original radiator. They bought and installed the original V-cell core from Maine Radiator Company, which is one of the two companies that make the original V-cell cores in USA. The radiator came out awesome, my original radiator restored to original new condition.

I installed the radiator and yesterday, Sunday, I took the car for a 30-mile ride. The engine temperature did not get higher than 160 degrees F. The Miami temperature was 85 degrees F and the traffic was moderate, however I had many traffic light stops. By the way no percolation the Vette ran phenomenal. I did two stops and the car started on the first crank no hot start.

To remove and install the radiator I did not have to to remove the hood and did not have to disconnect the hood prop either. There is plenty of room to get the radiator out/in without removing the hood or the hood prop. You do have to remove the upper and lower shroud, and the fan blades.
I replaced both upper and lower hoses and installed ball valves on both heater hoses. Also, I installed a new Robert Shaw series 300 160 F thermostat. I did a flush of the engine block. Removed the plugs drained all the coolant and installed new steel plugs.
I decided to go with Evans waterless coolant. The previous owner that owned the car for forty years had waterless coolant since he owned the car. The car has never gone higher than 160 F since I have owned for four years. There was no detectable corrosion anywhere in the coolant system, The engine plugs where very hard to brake lose but neither the block or the plugs had any corrosion. The coolant that was removed form the system was very clean, did not show any signs of corrosion.



My Vette original radiator restored with an original new V-cell core. The radiator was sand blasted the V-cell core installed and painted.



The original Harrison label and here you can see the V-cell core detail

 

Roberto, can you share the name of the company you used incase someone would like to do the same? Cost?

Thanks and Good Luck... GUSTO

 

Roberto, was good to talk to you the other day, glad to see you got the radiator back in and all is ok. I run the same radiator as you with the Evans and have never seen my temp over 170 even at walking speed in a very long ST. Patrick's Day parade in Savannah, several newer cars were pulled off to the side because of overheating.

Keep in touch,

Bill

 

Hi Gusto,
The name of the company is:

Robert Radiator Core Manufacturing Inc.
The owners name are Rosa and Roberto. Rosa is the manager of the place and the wife of the owner. She will be the one that you will talk to. Search for the company name and you will see their website.
1-800-350-0116
I am going there tomorrow because my brother needs his 1953 Chrysler radiator restored. I will ask them if they are doing the work they did for me to others. My brother and myself are good friends of Rosa's brother. We went to school together in the 1950s. So they did the special core for me and the cost was less than a new replica radiator. You will have to get a quote from them.
There are other radiator restorers that do the V-cell. There are not many that do and that want to do it. Soldering the Vcell to the tanks is a manual tedious work and only a few people know how to do it and are willing to do it.

Classic Radiators
994 Fulton Street
Farmingdale , NY 11735
www.classicradiator.com
Check out their website. They do the V-cell and some forum members have use them.

There is another one that I talked to the owner and he does the Harrison restoration but I can not find the information. I will post it when I find it.

There are only two core manufacturers in USA that make the original V-cell cores.

1- Maine Radiator Mfg.

2- Brassworks: 500 Linne Road, suite 1; Paso Robles Ca 93446
To give you an idea of the cost Brassworks gave ma a quote of $472.63 for the V-cell core. So my guess is that you double that and you are probably looking at $800 to $900 for the restoration. This is just my guess.

Robert Radiator bought the core from Maine Radiator Mfg. They are a very large company and Robert Radiator gets their specialty cores from them.

 

Hi Bill,

Like wise it was great chatting with you the other day. Yesterday I finally took out the beast for a spin to check out the radiator. It never got higher than 160 degrees. So I am very happy today. I am having lunch now and then I am off to ride my vintage German 1957 motorcycle. Boy it sure is tough to be retired.

 

Interesting. I didn't know vintage radiators could be restored in this way. Your radiator looks to be copper; I assume aluminum radiators cannot be restored like this.

 

Lou,
The problem is that very few people have the skill to restore a vintage radiator with the original deign V-cell. For what I understand you have to solder each individual core column to the upper and lower tanks. So you can imagine how tedious and delicate work that is. As you solder one column you have to be careful not to unsolder the column next to it. Roberto the owner of Robert Radiator is one of the few left that knows how to do it. He did me a favor because of our friendship. He explained to me how he did it and it is a time consuming delicate work that takes patience, know how and wanting to do it. Like I mentioned I am going to his factory tomorrow and I will ask him if he will do more like mine to other forum friends. Also I will ask him about the Aluminum radiator.

However, if you are serious about keeping your car with an original restored Harrison then you can buy one used in Ebay and then have one of this people restore it with the V-cell core. I did searches on Ebay and found several harrisons for $155 to $170. All you need is the top and bottom tanks and the side straps the core you do not care. Then Classic Radiators will do it for you.

 

I just came back from Robert Radiator Core Manufacturer and the owner stated that yes he will restore Harrison radiators. Just give them a call and talk to them. He can not do Aluminum radiators.