First off....My radiator was CLOGGED...
 

dirt, mud, DUST mostly, bugs. I washed it out real good:thumbup: The condensor hid all that, so i was running the cooling system to the MAX, my fans might have been running all the time!!! I couldn't tell because the A/C clutch was making so much noise(cuz it turned into a lathe). I want to put some large screen in front of the radiator to catch rocks and bugs. that condenser took a beating from gravel!!!:eek: Hoping to get some more grille blocked now...
the car is MUCH easier to drive now, i found myself doing about 55 where i normally do 50 because of the power gain/less effort required on pedal. THAT PULLEY WAS DRAGGING!!!!! Maybe I'm already getting 40....

Just took the front bumper/grill off my Cobalt to remove the front license plate holder (damn thing was pop riveted on) and do a partial grill block and I was amazed at how much junk got in the radiator in only 15 months.

Granted I drive back country roads at night in NC so I do kill my fair share of bugs.

After blocking the lower grill I think I'm going to put some netting on the top opening.

I have some window screening left over from a project that should probably help keep my radiator from getting as bad as it sounds like yours was.

Not to be overly critical, but if you posted all these things together in one thread it would be easier to figure out what is going on.

Just sayin

Every spring I pull out the Simple Green and soak the radiator and condenser.
Wait about thirty minutes and from the engine side I rinse the garbage out with a garden hose. It makes a whole lot of difference.
Don't forget to stop at a heating/cooling supplier and pick up a fin straightener also. The small stones and bugs do bend the fins when they hit at speed. Bent fins lower means cooling effect.

SVOboy wrote:
> Not to be overly critical, but if you posted all these things together in one thread it would be easier to figure out what is going on.

Man, I give Isaac points for giving us a title that relates to the post--it contained the words "radiator" and "CLOGGED". These forums have a bunch of titles that don't give you a clue to the topic, e.g.

How many of you think it would be nice to see a list of

Still big for me!!!

Taked to the dealer today....

I find it interesting that nobody mentioned

Do we have a set of style guidelines somewhere on this web site? Most of us would probably follow them if they were prominent. I personally lurked for a year before I dove in, just trying to get a feel for the place...and I'm still too much a noob to risk discourtesy; style guidelines would be a help.

PS--the examples above relate to a users list, Neon mileage, torque converter clutch operation, and interference between the air conditioner condenser and the radiator.

That sounds like a good idea. Do you take the radiator out entirely, or do you remove the grille/front fascia and "attack" it in place?

jkp, it depends on the car. On my rolling couch, there's ample room to attack the radiator from front and back. On a more compact car, you'd likely have to take off the grille.

Also, screen material over the lower grille does wonders for cleanliness. I put in some screening on my fiancee's Honda Fit a week after we got it. In another week it was littered with the carcasses of dead bugs, some of them quite large. I can only imagine what they would have done to the condenser if they had hit.

Yeah, but I believe those are all from this OP... and if not, at least 2 of them are, maybe 3, which kind of displaces the argument in his favor, doesn't it?

I can agree with titles that are slightly related to the topic, but then again, there's the "hover" feature, where you hover over the title, and the first few words in the post show up in a note, which is to help you decide if it's something you're interested in or not.

I can also agree that the topics based on the same vehicle should probably be put in the same thread, with POST TITLES rather than new threads, because the more threads that are posted, the more strain it is on the EM forum server.

My appologies to everyone for scattering posts/threads
 

:thumbup:

There's a good aero argument for slowing cooling air down before it gets to the radiator--loitering in the radiator increases the heat transfer to a given parcel of air, so less air mass is required for a given amount of liquid cooling, so less air is needed, so the air entry opening in the body can be smaller--in racers it's done by guiding the air through an expanding duct. Hard to do as a mod to most cars since there's not much distance between the air entry opening at the front of the body and the radiator, you'd probably have to build a new nose...pardon the rambling, what I'm wondering is if this might reduce the radiator clogging as well. If less air mass goes through the radiator, that's less bugs too, and maybe slowing the air would slow the bugs enough to make a difference in their depth of radiator penetration/adhesion.

Attack it in place and I take out the grill. There are brackets on top that hold them together. Unbolt them and I can move the radiator back towards the engine. It gives me just enough room to get to the condenser from behind with the hose and spray the front of the radiator with some Simple Green.

I have about 16 inches from the nose to the radiator
 

18 if you measure to the point of the nose. Is that enough room for an expansion duct? I would like to give it a try since a lot of the air can go around my radiator. It would also help with my belly pan install.