jweide

Greetings!:
I have a 1984 Corvette and recently discovered that the front of the radiator was packed and I mean packed with road material. Does anyone have any suggestions for cleaning the front. The radiator is enclosed which compounds the situation.

As always thanks in advance for your comments they have been excellent and extremely helpful.

81c3

Remove the radiator. Its not hard to do. Then you can give it a proper coolant flush which it probably needs. This will also let you clean between the radiator and A/C condenser.

gerardvg

Hi

Once you have cleaned between the radiator and a/c condenser stop the free highway trash collection service, i put a mesh screen down past the front of the air filter down to lower air dam.
I no longer offer the free highway trash collection, has been great over the last 10 years. I recently fitted a double row all aluminium radiator and was surprised how clean the area was since fitting the fine mesh.

billschroeder5842

Here is what I found when I took off the shroud of my 89 just after I picked it up. I also have a screen mesh on both my 89 and 91.

LTDan96

I had the same! My car had collected practically a whole pine tree! I want to do that wire mesh mod. Have you posted about this project?

gerardvg

You can buy a air dam intake mesh kit on ebay or corvette central, however mesh grilles are readily available at parts shops.
I cut mine to size and shoved it down in front of the air cleaner and frame X brace, all the way down to the lower baffle in front of the booster fan.

It doesn't take long just measure the rough width and insert , remove trim and it will fit like a glove.

Or click the link below for a screen you can fit under the front bumper.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/84-91-CORVET...-/290401657970

LTDan96

Good deal! Seems like something the car should have had from the factory. I think I'll check the hardware store for an inexpensive fix. Thanks for the help!

SJW

Definitely should have been there from the factory. Here's what I made from materials I got at Lowe's:




You have to get down very low to see it at all, but I squirted it with flat black from a rattle can before installing, and it pretty much disappears visually against the black background of the air dam and inlet opening when the car is sitting on the ground.

It's been on there for around ten years, and has been very effective at keeping all but the smallest bits of debris out of the cooling stack. The car still runs nice and cool all these years later.

Live well,

SJW

billschroeder5842

Here is mine on the '89. I also painted it black to fade on in...

LTDan96

Nice! Looks great.

corvette_realtor

Great idea! I haven't seen anything get sucked up into my car yet (knock on wood) but if I start seeing trouble this fall, I'll look into this. So you don't have to do anything to secure it other than propping it into place?

LTDan96

I zoomed in on the pic. He has it fastened in the middle and at all corners.

SJW

These cars are bottom-feeders, and they will suck an extraordinary amount of crap into the cooling stack. If you drive the car, debris will find its way in there. Count on it.

The screen I fabricated is attached at the top by way of two small tabs that are anchored under the fog lamp access panel screws. Here's a shot of one of them, taken during the test-fit process before I painted the screen black:



These tabs were included with the expanded-metal gutter guard material that I used, bought from Lowe's. They are the clips that were to be used to attach the mesh to the gutters on a house. I just re-shaped them to suit my needs, and drilled a hole in each for the screw. Here's a shot of the re-shaped and drilled tab, attached to the screen, also prior to paint:



The screen is attached at the bottom with a black zip-tie at each of the bottom corners. I drilled a 1/4" hole through the black plastic air dam -- not on its front face, but around the corner just inside of the mouth of the air intake, and fed the zip-ties through the screen and those two holes. Being black, the ties are nearly invisible, and they've held the thing in place for at least ten years now. If you zoom in on this photo, you can see the zip-ties in each lower corner:



Live well,

SJW

corvette_realtor

Wow, great write-up, thanks for the details with pics.

cv67

blast out the fins from the backside with a water hose youll find all those will be packed solid, too.

2LZ

I ordered one of these for my '96.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/91-96-CORVET...75.c100623.m-1
Don't waste your money. It doesn't fit from side to side and needs lots of tweaking. I'm going to take it as a "$49.00 lesson" and get some mesh from Lowes like others here.
In the meantime, I made one of these PVC vac attachments like another member here and it rocks.

LTDan96

Holy smokes! It's only $2 and some change at Lowe's. Not to say I haven't been taken by some jerk with some overpriced stuff.

2LZ

Isn't that the truth. We've all been torched from time to time. I guess I should have clarified though a "9.00 restocking fee lesson"...which is irritating enough. 9.00 is lost beer money.
The piece doesn't look anything like the pic when it's on the car and isn't remotely close to fitting properly.
I've been vacuuming the roads of Volcano for a few weeks now. I need to make a run to Lowes.

Cjunkie

Beer is lost money. You drink $9 of beer it just comes out **** right? So basically you pissed away $9 either way. So don't let it get you down.
Most drunks are angry if they lose money in some places but have 'pissed' away thousands but are ok with that. Its all perspective.

Dt86

With the leaves falling now, I am going to have to do this.