DSDP Side Radiator Housing Modification

[dbywaters]

The last tenth of a mile home from our first outing in our 2003 Newmar Dutch Star is our dirty and dusty driveway. As I was savoring this last part of the weekend..while dodging pot holes in the driveway.. I noticed from my rear view mirror on the drivers side an amount of dust and dirt expelling from the side radiator area of our coach worthy of a crop duster. Now the prior weekend I had disassembled most of the shrouding around the radiators behind the lovers to clear 43K miles of trash bags and dirt living in between the radiator/CAC/Oil Cooler/AC condenser package..so all this dust is a concern... where was it coming from?. When I stopped at house I peered between the louvers to see that everything was covered covered with the dirt and dust from my driveway. I thought to myself....well that sucks....and blows.. but I did not have time to investigate it further.

SO, while I was laying on my back, pondering things of life and changing the air brake filter I noticed the absence of a baffle adjacent to the cooling systems shroud There was a HOLE.... a BIG HOLE to between the radiator shroud and the nearest (electrical) compartment. I figured that because of this oversight from the factory I had nothing that would block air from "short cycling" around the cooling system.. this opening truly was the source of dust I had viewed whilst driving up my dusty driveway. It probably worked great at blowing up loose Wal-Mart bags and placing them in the radiator cabinet... now this just won't do.

Being the collector and keeper of all things junk, I though of a way to seal this unwanted Newmar "Crop Dusting" option. I used about a dozen self tapping screws and a piece of EPDM (rubber roof) material I had laying around to create a flexible baffle to block the opening to the left of the plastic fan shroud. Anything would probably work just fine (maybe a shower curtain :-)) but EPDMi s thicker. My intent is to make sure no air from under the coach could easily return to the cool air side of the radiator (of course there is that big hole underneath between the coach and the road. but there is nothing I could do about that. I submit a photo of my "fix" below for your review.

I have not yet completed a real case test of my "dust generation option" delete, but the preliminary test went well as I can no longer feel air being blown out from the front edge of my radiator louvers as I could before.. It think my case is compounded because of that Sexy Full Width NEMAR Gravel shield I have hanging under my rear bumper. Who knows, I might even see some additional cooling after this mod and more likely a cleaner coach engine compartment. I hope this helps someone else out.. I could not find another thread that dealt with this.

[tom chelbana]

We have an 04 Essex and I turned the exhaust tip to a 90 plus degree angle and that made a world of difference in the dust behind the coach.

["007"]

You keep this up Doug we will need a new page in QT's # 3.