My 1990 Volvo 240(which has no electric fan on the radiator...just the clutch fan from the engine) has no Front air scoop. I found one on ebay but I got out bidded at 75.00. It seems like alot of money for a sheet of plastic. Last summer, I randomly would have my car overheat when sitting still at red lights or traffic jams. This winter I replaced the radiator, thermostat, and new clutch fan(got the tropical one). I haven't haven't been able to test it yet since summer hasn't come(I live in Austin, Texas). I am wondering.....how important is it to have that front air scoop? Would it make a significant diff. in cooling my car? Those Front air scoops seem to be really hard to come by and I'm really kicking myself for loosing that bid.

 

Did you get a 50/50 water/antifreeze mix for your coolant? If it wasn't premixed maybe you didn't dilute it. Also did you get a three-row radiator? IPD sells them. You probably know that, but I'm just throwing that out there. Everything else would make me think that it should run fine.

 

I got the Nissens radiator(part plastic part aluminum) that was around $160.00. Not sure how many rows it has. I used a premix 50/50 fluid also. I'm kicking myself for not bidding higher on that Front air scoop since I didn't know how rare they are. I wonder how effective it would of been.

 

Sitting still over heating will not be helped by that air scoop, it may help while driving but not sitting still.

U did good replacing fan and radiator. Crank it and let it run 20 mins or so, cool out or not if it is going to heat it will...

 

A new o.e. Nissens aluminum and plastic radiator, even a 2 row, will cool your motor just fine. In addition to the excellent suggestions above, I would add 1. Air pockets in the cooling system can be troublesome to remove and may be present 2. Be certain the drive belts are good and tight. Loose belts can slow down the water pump. 3. In particularly hot areas such as Texas, there is a trick one can perform on redblocks. Pull the grill and loosen the 4 screws/bolts tha hold your a/c condenser to the body. On the bottom corners, wedge a 1" block of wood or get creative and use an L bracket. Then, snug the screws back sown. This will allow a significant amount of air to get around the condenser and go straight to the radiator. Also, you didn't mention if your a/c was running. The auxiliary pusher fan originally installed in late model 240's was wired only to the overheat switch on the upper rad hose. I prefer to wire them to the compressor so when the a/c runs, the fan runs. The aux fan is specifically beneficial at low speeds not only in cooling the rad but allowing the paltry a/c to function marginally better.

 

our 87 240GL sedan has been running without the silly airdam under the bumper for about 5-6 years, hasn't had any problems at all. I got tired of scraping it on parking lots. it *does* have the gravel guard whatever thing under the engine, those greatly help with cooling. I did put the nice all brass IPD radiator in there when the original one croaked around 300K miles.