Think about how a water pump works and you'll see how ridiculous that idea is. Similar to the magnets on fuel lines, or the Silly ignition crap they used to sell us for "oil burners"

The main trouble is the itty bitty impellers on the stock pumps (spinning in that big hole on the front of the T-bird motors) - then couple that with the restriction of the el cheapo small port thermostats........the flow rate is ugly.

For whatever reason - the baffles make the flow rate worse. There is logic in closing up the huge clearance hole left by the one inch front cover spacer - but it doesn't seem to do the job as intended. You can get more pump performance out of a bigger thermostat than the baffle.

Eddie

Lake Forest, Ca 92630

Eddie 

Lake Forest, Ca

i might have an idea on the baffles, years ago fords main rival in aus holden had a problem with the water pumps on their v8's they had a huge housing with a tiny steel impeller the housing in the timing case was huge as well, the impellers were open like a multi bladed boat prop they would cause cavitation in the water making them boil easily & thumping in the radiator like a stuck thermostat the answer was to buy an aftermarket pump with a full cast impeller it solved the problem, so maybe the t'birds had the same problem & fords fix was the baffle whuch obviously doesnt work.

moz.

And thanks to all for the replies.  Unfortunately I initially did look at a stock water pump and could see some logic in the baffle in it reducing the clearance behind the impellor and potentially helping the flow.  After re-examining the pump as per Frank's suggestion, I can see that the pump works differently than I originally thought.  And as suggested, I went over to the Casco site and that definitely clears up that question.  Don’t use the baffle!  I recently put a T-Bird engine together and now feel much better about it not having a baffle.  I’m surprised that the baffle is still being listed in some of the various T-Bird parts manufacturers catalogs based on some of the comments about it.

Eddie

lake Forest, Ca. 92630

I have an opinion as to why the aftermarket T-Bird guys are still trying to sell the baffles.  They probably had a jillion of them stamped out when one of them first came up with the idea, so they have almost a jillion left to try to sell.  I never used one in either of my Birds, with a good radiator they always cooled fine.  I have always used the factory fan shrouds in them.

John

       No, only place it fits is on the Bird, there's a spacer between the water pump and the timing cover about an inch or so thick. The initial purpose was to move the standard water pump forward, toward the radiator, to line up with the pulleys on the 'Bird. That way they could continue to use a Pass car water pump, together with the truck timing cover, to accomodate a front mount, and clear the steering and suspension. I suspect that when people found out the 'Birds ran warmer than the cars, and looked for differences, that's the first thing they saw. So that must be the problem!! Has the same amount of science behind it as the global warming theorys. Adding to what John said, those are cheap to make & can be sold for a lot, so they're  very profitable. If you spent a $100 or whatever on a piece of tin, you'd convince yourself it worked too. So the rumour continues, nobody's about to tell the next guy he screwed up, or got screwed. So they must work! 

The T-Bird fan shroud doesn't cover the whole rad surface but it does conform to one principle I know of - the fan tips fit pretty closely to the circular opening. It is a big deal for fan efficiency to block the air that gets flung off radially when the blade tip is "open". The closer the fit of the tip to the shroud the more efficient the blades are at moving air out of the housing.

I recently reassembled the top end of my outfit and held a little "hot idle burn-down" test last night while watching with infared temp probe. I've got one of the Stewart style 1-1/2 inch opening 160° thermostats in there and the rest is stock - standard bird pulley and pump (for now). The quickest way to drive the temp up - and I mean immediately the probe shows a change - is to move the distributor vacuum source to the "ported" opening (retards to the initial advance setting of 10°-12°). Move it back to manifold vacuum and the temp starts dropping immediately - it sits there with 20" Hg and the water outlet checked 175°-177° with inlet air in front of the rad at 85°/90°. With the ported vacuum source the vacuum went to 16" and water temp went over 185°-190° right away. The driver side exhaust manifold had a big change too - that you would expect with retarding the timing. Full vacuum source - 400°F - ported - 550° - it makes me think that retarded timing is a big issue for a lot of the heating troubles I hear about. There seems to be "double whammy" - because the underhood air temp gets a big jump from the exhaust heating.

Pete - what does your timing light show at idle? Are you using manifold vacuum or ported?

you stick to your guns with the foundry you know what works they should just make them i used to love it when the holden guys would come in  water thumping away telling me they put in a new thermostat cause the old one was stuck & it was still doing it i used to tell them the engine was shot i was so cruel but thats what happens when you own a g.m.

on the global warming front in geelong tomorrow (thurs) & friday temps will be 38 & 39 dont think im doing to much detailing so much for it being autumn.

You have to have a one inch T-bird spacer under the pump to have enough room to swing this sort of blade in there.

With a smaller pulley - I'd expect this sort of impeller arrangement to really put out some serious flow.  You'd better have a serious sort of poppet hole in your thermostat - and some decent radiator hose clamps.

John in Selma, IN

John in Selma, IN