Summertime BUG GUTS

[submariner409]

If you're fortunate enough to live and/or drive in the wide open spaces, you may be tired of sweeping bug guts out of your radiator fins. Go to your local hardware and pick up a couple of yards of black nylon window/door screen, raise the hood, eyeball your radiator/condensor front area, and cut a piece of screen which will cover it. If necessary (applies to the Seville series and others???) temporarily remove the upper plastic radiator trim plate and wiretie the upper corners of the screen to the radiator mount brackets. Smooth the screen over the front of the condensor. BINGO!......no more bug guts in the engine room....BUT, you still have a skrillion bugs stuck to the bumper/headlight/grille area after a midnight blast through the hinterlands. If you tend to catch a lot of bugs, after your next wash cover the bumper and grille area with a thick coat of Mother's carnauba wax and don't buff it out. After a bugcatcher run, hose the carcasses off, dry, and spritz clean with a microfiber towel and detail spray wax. Like new.

[Ranger]

Be careful with that screening. I used to put that on every car I had till one started to overheat. When I removed it the temps went back to normal. You would be surprised how much air is deflected by those screens. Todays radiators are smaller (thinner) than they were years ago and need all the air flow they can get. Keep a close watch on your temp gauge.

[Playdrv4me]

Funny Submariner I knew you werent in Florida but when I saw the title of your post you threw me off for a second. I havent seen anyone post about this yet... but here in FL we get these HORRIFIC things called LOVE BUGS (given their name because all they do is mate once they are adults) and they LOVE to hang out on roads and highways... By the end of an average day of driving in the spring and early summer the ENTIRE FRONT END of the car will be covered in splattered love bugs.

In some places there are advisories because it can get so bad you wont be able to see out the windshield. To make matters worse, their body chemistry is so acidic that it etches the paint in very short order, and is nearly impossible to easily remove from the windshield.... its just... terrible all around.

Your talking about the radiator screen.... Well here, there are screens to go over the entire front clip of the car save for the windshield. It looks ridiculous, but I guess it protects the hood, bumper and grille.

[submariner409]

Ranger.......Did a before and after gauge check.....10 miles or 200, up to 86 deg. outside temp, all's OK. The gauge goes to 12:00 o'clock in a mile or so and stays there, traffic or no, A/C or not. An infrared thermometer shows no hot spots and A/C discharge temps are the same, screen or no. BTW....off-thread.....one panel of black nylon screen between the sun and whatever you want to protect/incubate cuts out 50% of the UV present. (Go to autogeek.net in Palm Coast/Stuart, for a "LoveBug" protection gel and kit.)