Front crossmember rubber flappy thing

[anglin]

Attached to the front, or rear, bottom edge of the radiator?

Ich habe keine Idee. I would guess it was on the rear edge, but I really don't know, so that amounts to nothing more than a WAG. Its location is probably moot, functionally.

OK, here's goes another commitment of theory without possession of a license: maybe that flap was intended to increase air flow through the A/C condenser.

Sure, I'd agree with that. Anything that increases air pressure in front of the assembly and decreases air pressure behind the assembly with work that way. With the small air gap between the condenser and the radiator, I would say treating them as an assembly would be a reasonable approximation of the system. Sure there would be some leakage around the edges, inward or outward, but all in all, most air that flows through one will flow through the other.

[anglin]

Quick update... Nate sent me the following message about this topic:

I was just cruising through the FAQ... and I came across my old thread on the front crossmember rubber flap. I left mine off the car for sh*ts and giggles and the FMIC and cooling is performing fine. My air temps are in the low 90's on 80* days and the water temp holds steady at the t-stat temp.

[duncan1437]

i just removed a rad that has the rubber air dam rivetted to the front bottom edge of the rad.

the rubber dam is made out of hard rubber and is 24" wide x 2" high x 2 mm thick. i bought a stair tread at home depot that has the same feel.

heres some pics:

[IMG]http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o194 ... r02001.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o194 ... r02002.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o194 ... d04002.jpg[/IMG]

the rubber used in the air dam mounted to the rad is harder and thinner than the air dam mounted to the crossmember.

(i'm not sure why the pics won't show)

edit....BTW the dimension/pic of the crossmember air dam are found here

http://merkursport.com/index.php?showto ... m+radiator

it's 32" x 3". The last 6" or so of each end gets radiused from 3" down to about 1/2". (See pic.) It's about 3/16" thick

[img]http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k173/ ... airdam.jpg[/img]

[IceColdMikey]

Edit to fix pic links for ya

[quote="duncan1437"]i just removed a rad that has the rubber air dam rivetted to the front bottom edge of the rad.

the rubber dam is made out of hard rubber and is 24" wide x 2" high x 2 mm thick. i bought a stair tread at home depot that has the same feel.

heres some pics:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o194 ... r02001.jpg

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o194 ... r02002.jpg

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o194 ... d04002.jpg

the rubber used in the air dam mounted to the rad is harder and thinner than the air dam mounted to the crossmember.

(i'm not sure why the pics won't show)

edit....BTW the dimension/pic of the crossmember air dam are found here

http://merkursport.com/index.php?showto ... m+radiator

it's 32" x 3". The last 6" or so of each end gets radiused from 3" down to about 1/2". (See pic.) It's about 3/16" thick

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k173/ ... airdam.jpg[/quote]

[MarkM]

i just removed a rad that has the rubber air dam rivetted to the front bottom edge of the rad.

the rubber dam is made out of hard rubber and is 24" wide x 2" high x 2 mm thick. i bought a stair tread at home depot that has the same feel.

heres some pics:







the rubber used in the air dam mounted to the rad is harder and thinner than the air dam mounted to the crossmember.

(i'm not sure why the pics won't show)

edit....BTW the dimension/pic of the crossmember air dam are found here

http://merkursport.com/index.php?showto ... m+radiator

it's 32" x 3". The last 6" or so of each end gets radiused from 3" down to about 1/2". (See pic.) It's about 3/16" thick

Don't check the "Disable BBCode" box if you want the IMG tag to work

[duncan1437]

thanks!!!

[John Brennan]

That looks identical to the one Rapido had made-- I had one.

[thebronze]

My car still has both of them attached.....

[Dirt Devil]

Hope this shows up. Excerpt from service manual.

http://s1148.photobucket.com/user/Onisa ... 3.jpg.html

[In XS 7]

[quote="Freejack"]Just a note for those who need to replace that piece and want something that will last longer than garden edging, use round baler belting.

If you are in farm country, or near any place that sells hay equipment, most of those places will stock round baler belting in bulk, just ask for a few feet of 3" wide belting. Its nylon re-enforce rubber, so it will handle things like curbs without tearing.

Jake[/quote]
Great info, Thanks.

[itking]

The rubber part of my air damper on the cross-member was broken off. I remade a new one from a snow plow flap. I also bought a new aluminum bar and duplicated the corroded one from it. then with a rivit gun & cleaning & repainting the metal bracket, It looks like new. My year XR did not have a air damper on the radiator, but I'm gonna put one on my aluminum shorty radiator to help with air flow. Still have enough rubber material to make one for there. I got pics somewhere. I'll get to posting them when I find them.