1989 Chevy Celebrity 4 door - my build thread

[wagonman76]

Heres my next thing Ive been thinking of trying. A cover for the wiper area. Hopefully it should really clean up any turbulence from the wiper arms, plus create a shallow angle to help get the air up the windshield. Maybe Ill even need to use my wipers less.

I found a couple large pieces of coroplast on some scrap pallets out back at work. First I took some measurements and drew it on Autocad, then plotted it out and tried it on. It seemed to fit pretty well so I traced it on the coroplast and cut it out. The ends shove nicely into the seam between the cowlpiece and fender, and the front is held in by the hood. It was too late to paint it, but Ill see how it does anyway. When I do paint it, Ill touch up the airdam. Gravel roads are taking a toll on the finish. But hey, all the mods have been free.

[MetroMPG]

You know the surefire way to tell if the mod is making things better or worse is to tuft test it. I'm thinking the angle of that cowl is very steep. (Maybe it's just the photo angle in the middle pic...)

Tuft testing the windshield is easy too - no need to set up a web cam or have someone follow you to capture the results. They're right in your face.

[wagonman76]

The middle pic is indeed a bit deceiving, I thought that too. The face of the cover is actually less steep than the slope of the windshield.

What is tuft testing? Ive never heard of it.

[MetroMPG]

It's using pieces of yarn taped on the area in question to visualize airflow:

See:

Video: tuft testing rear wheel skirts - Geo Metro

[aerohead]

In the phil knox aerodynamic photos album,I have a photo of a Cavalier in GM's wind tunnel.It's not the Celebrity,however the basic forms are similar.The smoke appears to "jump" the entire cowl area,and my sense is that the windshield wipers may be embedded within a "bubble" of air at the base of the windshield,which might reduce the effectiveness of your deflector.

[wagonman76]

Ill have to check out that video when I get some time on broadband.

One thing I noticed today was my windows were dewed up from sitting all night (typical) but with the wiper cover, the bottom half of the windshield didnt get cleared up from driving, when the top half did. Any other day the whole windshield would get cleared off from driving.

This coming Sunday Ive gotta go downstate again. Ill hopefully see if it makes any difference in my mpg. Ive got like 5 cord of wood to cut up this week so I probably wont get to do much to the car. I have thought of simple aero wheel discs, just get some trim rings from the junkyard, get some circles of steel cut from anything, and weld them to the trim rings. Also would like to try to remove the passenger mirror. I know how, I just dont have the time this week.

[Will]

Originally Posted by wagonman76

Heres my next thing Ive been thinking of trying. A cover for the wiper area.

This might also keep your cowl intake shaded more. That might help to reduce the temp of the air going into the cabin in summer. That would help with no a/c efforts. I am thinking of doing something like this on my Metro for just that reason...

[wagonman76]

I did get to try some things when I got home, while it was too hot to cut wood. Much easier than welding covers to trim rings, not very weather resistant, but good for testing. I just traced my trim rings onto coroplast and cut them out, taped them to the trim rings with packaging tape all the way around, and sprayed them with something that was supposed to match (but of course never does). I did have to remove my nice center caps so I packed them away for now. The caps can be pulled off with a screwdriver, or just by hand if youve got strong fingers. So to check air is not a big deal.

After the pic, I also took the radio antenna off and just slid it under the dash behind the glove box. The end inside the fender was pretty corroded, that might explain my horrible AM reception. Ill come up with something better eventually. I put a piece of plastic under the original cover plate to seal it off before screwing it back on.

[ChrstphrR]

My own wipers aren't working right, and they were sticking up a little on the way to work. There's been talk on another forum between me and trebuchet03 a while ago about making a windshield wiper cowl for 4th gen. Jettas, since the wipers don't sit flush.

Intuition says that a cowl will help. Not many are available commercially - searching long ago, there's only ones for some pickup models. Really, that only leaves homebrew mods.

Good job with jumping right into it, more motivation for we fence-sitters. I was thinking instead of body coloured, what about semi-flat black, to look more like trim?

[BrianAbington]

holy cow...a celebrity that still runs?!?!

I am watching this intently because you obviously have some good ideas.

I hadn't thought about the cowl piece...I may try that on my car.