Just bought a 76 TA 455 last weekend. Has new aluminum rad installed. I noticed that there's no steam pipe installed, only the overflow hose going into the coolant overflow tank. How important is the steam pipe? Could that be causing my TA to overheat. Temp gets up to around 220 and then the coolant in the overflow starts to bubble. I can hear coolant running when the car shuts off and starts to cool down. I also noticed that the top radiator hose (going to the stat) doesn't have any coolant in it until the car gets up to temp, then it starts to flow. So sounds like i need to burp the system more. But back to my original question, is the steam pipe absolutely necessary? v/r JD