Waterfront Louver System

Hi Tom, it’s actually a WINTERfront. The Series 80’s need all the cooling they can get, so you don’t see many cars with a winterfront still installed.

The ‘honeycomb’ radiator clogs up very easily with rust flakes from inside the block and head, and bits of congealed waterpump grease make a ‘glue’ and soon the honeycomb radiator is partially clogged, and it needs all the air it can get through the core to cool the engine.

Speaking of honeycomb cores, the winterfront is usually mounted with 4 long, small diameter bolts that go through 4 of the honeycomb core holes.. This is an easy way to create a leak in the radiator. The original bolts had a thin rubber tube that supposedly cushioned the bolt’s contact with the radiator core.. But the rubber became rock-hard very quickly with the heat, and soon the core was dripping coolant.

Be very careful with using, installing and removing a Winterfront.

Greg Long.

You guys are right, it’s called a WINTERfront. And yes, I live in Wisconsin so the ride, like I took yesterday in 25 degree weather, was chilly. But we got 8″ of snow last night so I figured if I want to get a ride in; I better do it now. As far as the honeycomb core goes and the ‘clogging’ issues; your once again correct. I had my core replaced last month. It was the factory original. Since my Roadster only has 33,000 miles on it, I figured it couldn’t be that bad. Boy was I wrong. My radiator guy showed me the core after he had removed it. The top tank was so clogged up with what appeared to be cement, he was guessing that I was getting about 5% flowage. What seems odd to me is that I drove that car 3 days a week all last Summer with no overheating problems at all. Nevertheless, now I have a new core and this Summer I can rest assure it’ll be a ‘cool’ ride.