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Winter riding, radiator cover

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:41 pm
by malcolmzilla
Perhaps this is common knowledge but...

Noticed during a winter ride with ambients below -10c, thanks to my thermostat radiator cap, that the coolant on my xc250 was rarely getting above 20c, and it was running poorly (jetting might’ve been a contributing issue, but I do have a carb heater).

My xc has no thermostat, I think some xcw and xcfs do, and my buddy mentioned that his 17 150sx (no thermostat) came with inserts to block the airflow through the radiators for cold weather.

So I decided to make a quick n dirty n cheap radiator cover to try on the next ride. Measured and cut it out of a discarded gallon oil container, use heat gun to straighten and set bend at the top, and installed it. Bigger grab handle for gloved hands.

At the next ride of about -10, the bike performed much better, and indicated coolant temperature only ever touched yellow on slogging hard spinning climbs, as soon and the bike was moving again it was back to mid green, but also not off the bottom of the scale.

Cheap solution if it works for you.
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Re: Winter riding, radiator cover

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:15 am
by Dobi
sweet set up. where did you get that rad cap? I have run the temp strips on my rad before and have been amazed how cold it ran in the winter. My solution was duct tape over the BPD rad guards :applause:

Re: Winter riding, radiator cover

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:12 pm
by malcolmzilla
Rad cap is from RMATV / Tusk, works pretty well. Boiled the XC over twice on slogging slow climbs in warmer weather, so wanted a 2.0 bar, although gearing it down a bit has helped things too.

Re: Winter riding, radiator cover

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 6:42 pm
by axel99
Malcolm, stop posting all this awesome stuff, you are making me feel irrelevant :D

Re: Winter riding, radiator cover

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 10:22 pm
by dirtyboy
Nice! I need to make one of these. :thumbsup:

Re: Winter riding, radiator cover

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:54 am
by malcolmzilla
Worked well again yesterday, bike much happier.
As ambient temperatures rose later in the ride it started to creep up to yellow on climbs, folded the cover in half, jammed it back in, back to the top of green the whole way out.
Bit more adjustable than duct tape but that works too.

Re: Winter riding, radiator cover

Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 12:28 pm
by dirtyboy
I've recently learned that the bikes with thermostats (XCW) block off the left radiator when it's cold and open when warm. The right rad is always "on".

Re: Winter riding, radiator cover

Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:44 pm
by malcolmzilla
Sounds like foundational research that would support a new tech post...