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Hi, in the pictures below, the inside diameter of the lower hose for a 70 and 71 is 1.75",
I thought it was 1.5" for 1971 and 1.75 for 1970 (at the rad side).
Hi. I'm going thru the same thing. I think I'm going to need a new radiator, and looking at various parts suppliers, they do not all show the same inlet and outlet sizes for the same car.
For example, some show the upper and lower inlets are both 1.5", some show inlet (top hose at the radiator end) as 1 7/8" and 1.813", some show outlet (lower hose at radiator end) as 1.75. All of these are supposed to fit 72 Cutlass vin K (350/4bbl).
I also tried to research the size of the water pump inlet for the lower hose - I could find nowhere that gave that spec, including on the Gates website and the ACDelco website (both manufacture water pumps), or any of the parts suppliers.
This is impossibly confusing. I don't know how to resolve this, other than to research ClassicOldsForum, which is how I found your post. I'll keep looking and let you know if I find the answer. Hope you'll do the same for me if you find the answer.
Did you finally find pages 333 and 334 in the 1972 Cutlass/442 Assembly Manual ? They are not great diagrams, but that's all I could find. They at least give you a general idea about the placement of the lower saddles.
Also, when you look up radiators or hoses on a supplier website, they do not ask you if the car is AC or Non-AC, or HD cooling or not. If you look up water pumps, they do ask if AC or not. "They" could make this even more confusing if they would form a committee and really gave it some thought.
Hi. I'm going thru the same thing. I think I'm going to need a new radiator, and looking at various parts suppliers, they do not all show the same inlet and outlet sizes for the same car.
For example, some show the upper and lower inlets are both 1.5", some show inlet (top hose at the radiator end) as 1 7/8" and 1.813", some show outlet (lower hose at radiator end) as 1.75. All of these are supposed to fit 72 Cutlass vin K (350/4bbl).
I also tried to research the size of the water pump inlet for the lower hose - I could find nowhere that gave that spec, including on the Gates website and the ACDelco website (both manufacture water pumps), or any of the parts suppliers.
This is impossibly confusing. I don't know how to resolve this, other than to research ClassicOldsForum, which is how I found your post. I'll keep looking and let you know if I find the answer. Hope you'll do the same for me if you find the answer.
Did you finally find pages 333 and 334 in the 1972 Cutlass/442 Assembly Manual ? They are not great diagrams, but that's all I could find. They at least give you a general idea about the placement of the lower saddles.
Barry
Yes thanks I did found those pages. See pic below about inlet outlet...
I posted in that #18 reply on the thread and I stated the year radiator (4 row) I measured.....1970. The 3 row rad w/the same size outlet is also an original 1970 rad. I just went and double checked the size and it is 1-13/16" diameter. That's putting a caliper on the SMOOTH part of the outside of the lower radiator outlet....NOT on the slightly belled/flared out part at the end of the outlet.
FWIW, Gates makes an adapter that will convert a smaller (later) diameter lower radiator outlet to the larger (early) size which will allow use of the earlier lower radiator hose (assuming the WP is the correct one for an earlier car). I don't remember the PN, but RockAuto sells them. I used this when I replaced my factory radiator with an aluminum aftermarket one on my '68.
I am using this for a lower coolant hose on my 350 and it work extremely well - Gates 26511. It runs between a Milodon aluminum water pump and my Be-Cool aluminum radiator
