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Anyone else use GoWesty radiator baffles?
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djkeev
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 1:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

camerobias wrote:
Just did it on my Aircooled van that I'm preparing for a motor swap.


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Ironic as it may seem.........

These mounted on an Air Cooled to Water Cooled conversion ARE properly mounted.

BTW, I used these baffles but with a Vintage Air Condenser so the entire fit was a tad dicey all around, a little nip and tuck were required in spots.

Dave
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think my van needs some new ones:

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Thanks to all the photos posted, I now know how to mount the new ones whenever I get around to buying a new set.
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msinabottle
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 3:12 pm    Post subject: Score Two for Winston and Rob Reply with quote

I am a big fan of GoWesty, although I adore cookies very much, and the people who send me those quickly and well. I also have had only good experiences with Bus Depot.

I say that, because, as this thread shows, at times... GoWesty does not... quite... get the end game right. I ordered their kit to lock down the instrument cluster...

http://www.gowesty.com/product-details.php?v=&id=23954

and found that the holes in the metal tabs were too small for the supplied, correctly-sized screws!

Shocked

Drilling and profanity were involved.

So, this year, I bought the Plastic Radiator Baffle set...

http://www.gowesty.com/product-details.php?v=&id=23975

They now have a useful schematic off that link, FYI

and did my homework. There was NO QUESTION that the tabs for the locking plastic rivet were 180 degrees off from where they should have been bent.

Shocked

The brilliant gnarlodious had broken one bending it back. Fortwithtx drilled his own holes... I... got out the heat gun.

SUCCESS!

I kept the setting on 'low,' wore leather yard gloves, and put the heat gun on its flat end, with the muzzle pointing up. I got the plastic of each baffle to where it would bend, and used linesman's pliers to bend the tabs to where they needed to be at the same crease GoWesty's fabricator had gotten 180 degrees off.

They cooled down where I had bent them, and the side baffles slid right into place and screwed and locked down. Winston is now ready for his annual trip up to Fort Collins for the Rocky Mountain Westy camp-out. Some additional observations:

    Winston's original cardboard baffles were in pieces, but the plastic rivets, and metal clips were still in place, and salvageable.

    The lower clips were gone on the lower plate, but I found metal ones at the local Ace that worked with half inch sheet metal screws through the clips, plastic, and into the same holes that had held the old cardboard baffle.

    I used stainless steel half-inch sheet metal screws to replace those on the lower baffle, the originals were rusting.


Week before I installed Winston's new collapsible antenna which, had it been an identical Hirschmann collapsible antenna to the one I was replacing, I'd have just had to replace the mast, but, as it was, it was different enough that I had to replace everything, and, speaking of GoWesty, there are some good YouTube videos on that procedure that can save you a lot of aggravation.

I think we're good to go, now...

Best!
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kourt
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 3:59 pm    Post subject: Re: Score Two for Winston and Rob Reply with quote

msinabottle wrote:
I ordered their kit to lock down the instrument cluster...

http://www.gowesty.com/product-details.php?v=&id=23954

and found that the holes in the metal tabs were too small for the supplied, correctly-sized screws!


Read the page for the GoWesty Instrument Cluster Mounting Tab Kit carefully. It says:

"These tabs are specifically designed to capture the screws—once screwed into the tab—so the screw will remain in the tab even when uninstalled."

The screws were a tight fit intentionally--that is part of the design of the product. The first screw into the tabs will be difficult because of this design feature. Unfortunately, they don't ship any instructions with the kit--I had to learn this by referring back to the item webpage on the GW site.

kourt
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djkeev
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:05 pm    Post subject: Re: Anyone else use GoWesty radiator baffles? Reply with quote

Yeah, I too wondered if the heavy coated cardboard may have been a better material choice.

I've read where people have used the plastic corrugated yard /political signs to make new baffles.

"Make Vanagons Great Again!" Air baffles......

Dave
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Vanagon Nut
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:12 pm    Post subject: Re: Score Two for Winston and Rob Reply with quote

msinabottle wrote:



So, this year, I bought the Plastic Radiator Baffle set...

http://www.gowesty.com/product-details.php?v=&id=23975

They now have a useful schematic off that link, FYI

and did my homework. There was NO QUESTION that the tabs for the locking plastic rivet were 180 degrees off from where they should have been bent.

Shocked

The brilliant gnarlodious had broken one bending it back. Fortwithtx drilled his own holes... I... got out the heat gun.

SUCCESS!

I kept the setting on 'low,' wore leather yard gloves, and put the heat gun on its flat end, with the muzzle pointing up. I got the plastic of each baffle to where it would bend, and used linesman's pliers to bend the tabs to where they needed to be at the same crease GoWesty's fabricator had gotten 180 degrees off.





I finally got around to installing these baffles on my air to water cooled engine swap '81; I'd had the parts lying around for several years now.

Good idea with the heat gun. I likely got lucky with bending those tabs; they didn't (haven't yet) break.

The kit may have come with fasteners but they are MIA so I ended up enlarging the hole in each tab then used a giant coarse threaded screw at each tab. I'd suggest this is not the best thing to do; it obviously weakens the hole at tab. I can now see that detail in the schematic. Looks like a big plastic plug type fastener?

Since my bus was air cooled, I had to drill a hole in sheet metal (behind grill) for each baffle. The bottom piece just screwed onto the two brackets on the radiator.

This is very premature to say, but it seems that the temp gauge sits a little lower now while at speed.

Neil.
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msinabottle
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 5:19 pm    Post subject: Re: Anyone else use GoWesty radiator baffles? Reply with quote

Quote:
Read the page for the GoWesty Instrument Cluster Mounting Tab Kit carefully. It says:

"These tabs are specifically designed to capture the screws—once screwed into the tab—so the screw will remain in the tab even when uninstalled."


There was no way those screws would fit through those holes. I had thought they might be self-tapping, but the supplied screws were NOT threading, even with pliers holding the tabs. It's possible I just got a bad set, but they weren't going to install at all the way I got them.

I HOPE everybody else's mileage varied!

Shocked

Quote:
The kit may have come with fasteners but they are MIA so I ended up enlarging the hole in each tab then used a giant coarse threaded screw at each tab. I'd suggest this is not the best thing to do; it obviously weakens the hole at tab. I can now see that detail in the schematic. Looks like a big plastic plug type fastener?


No, the kit came with NO fasteners, you necessarily had to use the ones that came with your old set-up, and you didn't have one. I bought 'extruded u nuts' from Ace Hardware, the ones I found would work with half inch 10-24 sheet metal screws. I imagine your radiator brackets would have been tapped with the right holes for the bottom baffle, the ones on the sides go through the Van's front clip. The VW part for the plastic 'clip' that holds the tab to the hole in the front grill is

801 867 299

and for the VW 'speed nut' it's

015 448 1

if that's helpful to you or anybody.

Best!
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:12 pm    Post subject: Re: Anyone else use GoWesty radiator baffles? Reply with quote

djkeev wrote:


"Make Vanagons Great Again!"

Dave


Oh my, that may be much more interesting and funny than it appears.
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:49 pm    Post subject: Re: Anyone else use GoWesty radiator baffles? Reply with quote

djkeev wrote:
I've read where people have used the plastic corrugated yard /political signs to make new baffles.

"Make Vanagons Great Again!" Air baffles......

Laughing Laughing Laughing

I did mine with 2 corrugated plastic signs, but mine were in support of a local school bond referendum..."Just yay YES!"

I kinda like the idea of driving that much positivity all around the country...get your karma where you can!

Cool

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 6:33 am    Post subject: Re: Anyone else use GoWesty radiator baffles? Reply with quote

GoWesty wrote:
Fit notes: Does not fit Diesel Vanagons.


Yeah, I call Bullshit. Mine fit just fine....
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:56 pm    Post subject: Re: Anyone else use GoWesty radiator baffles? Reply with quote

I installed these today and like others am disappointed with the fit. The bottom baffle is screwed into little mounts on the radiator at the rear and just sits against the sheet metal at the front. The verticals seems like they are designed so the long edge is meant to slot into the gap between the metal and the plastic tank on the radiator but it is too thick so just sits against the slot rather than in it.

There are two holes in the vertical pieces, one for a tab which is fastened to the sheet metal at the bottom of the upper grille and one hole which is meant to line up with the hole on the side of the lower grille. As others have noted the tabs are bent the wrong way for the existing holes so you can either attempt to bend it the other way or drill another hole.

The kit doesn't come with any fasteners so I drilled a hole and used a self tapping screw for the tabs the way they were without trying to bend them. For the other holes I used two of the captive screws from the Van Cafe lower grille mounting kit and filed the holes in the baffles to a rectangle shape so they would fit. I had to trim the top of the vertical pieces to make them fit under the radiator mount to give them some kind of restraint rather than just flapping around.

You would think that for $40 for three pieces of recycled plastic that Gowesty would have come up with something better than this.
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2018 12:12 am    Post subject: Re: Anyone else use GoWesty radiator baffles? Reply with quote

Nope.
My understanding is that they searched high and low for a FULL set of the waxed-paper originals. Then they copied them and sold the resulting product.
Crap fit from and original crap designed part.
But trust me, they work just fine. And after you mount the grille back on, you will never see anything wrong with them.
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