How to block your front grill with pipe insulation

Not for a while yet. It is supposed to be -35*C tomorrow and next week.

Yesterday when it was +18 celcius (66F) operating temps were up to 85 degrees C, when all winter, didn't see much over 80 degrees C (according to ScanGauge)
My car runs cooler than yours Narf....interesting...my MK4 ran pretty much the exact same temps as the MK5.
I never see over 90 degrees C unless I am idling in the middle of summer.

Snow is forecast for this Sunday evening in my fair city, so it's almost time again to set up your scurvy winter front - I'll do updated pictures this year and revamp the first post.

I just put some conditioner on my OEM kit. I think I may suppliment it with some foam on the lower grill, since it only partially blocks it.

It's getting cold!

scurvy said:

Total time was approximately 3 minutes. I did not block off the lower left or right slots because lunch break was over and I was cold, plus my intercooler is in the lower passenger side slot - I like that one getting as much cold air as it can.


scurvy

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I take the 2 side grilles out and leave them out , the tow hook is on the passenger side cuz i really don't want to screw around at -20 C putting in the tow hook and the other side is where I stow the plug for the oil pan heater

I am going to do your mod ,thanx

My lower grill works very nicely as a holder for my Frostheater plug. Unfortunately the black plug in the black grill doesn't show up in the picture, but it jams in really nicely to keep it from flopping around.

I'll be doing this and getting a tdiheater for sure... Car's going to be sitting outside this year

Thought about the cardboard behind the radiator but I don't want to mess with that after it gets wet.

I put my cold-weather front on today, also filled in the gaps with the foam. Blocked the intercooler too. That should keep things toaty when I'm zipping between provinces!

-Adonis- said:

Thought about the cardboard behind the radiator but I don't want to mess with that after it gets wet.

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I was thinking of trying Hobby Lobby for some corrugated plastic board, and mounting that behind the grille.

frugality said:

I was thinking of trying Hobby Lobby for some corrugated plastic board, and mounting that behind the grille.

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This stuff?



It's cheap and it works.

NB_TDi said:

This stuff?

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Almost. I don't see pink there. I really wanted pink...

Head to a sign store. You can pick your flavour and enjoy.

Post #1 updated. Hope this helps!

'Splain this one to me!

I just did this mod to my '03 Bora.

It's not that cold in North Carolina (we have global warming down here -- especially in Chapel Hill), but I wanted to elevate my coolant temperature up to 190 for the sake of efficiency. I never get above 182.

So I did the mod, and now I can't get above 179! (Just completed a 300 mile run).

Are my cooling fans coming on to defeat the mod?

Can I change the "turn on" setting for the fans?

Are there thermostats with a rating above 190?

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

Just a little heads up for those fellow Canucks looking into doing this.

The Canadian Tires in Winnipeg sell 6' lengths of 3/4" pipe insulation for $0.99, so in MB that's just $1.11 after taxes! It's a kind of darkish grey colour. I'm guessing you can find this in any CT store though.

My '02 required ~6', the '09 required ~12' and the 2004 Envoy needed ~6' too, so $4.44 to do winter fronts on 3 vehicles, and it took less than an hour in total to do all 3, and it looks a hell of a lot better than cardboard. It's almost an exact colour match for the Envoy's grill and the '09 JSW's paint. Also doesn't look bad against the Galactic Blue of my '02. I'm super pleased with how it turned out.

Thanks for the idea Scurvy!

Here on the Island it doesn't generally get too cold...rarely below 0*c. But, with the piped grill I find it warms up a bit quicker...but the benifit I like is that the car seems to cool down less when parked(for, say, 20 mins or so at a time) while running errands.

I used 1/2 inch insulation ,the stuff I got came in lengths long enough to cut in 2 ,the long piece's fit the lower grill and the remaining short piece fit the top grill exactly

I think it warms up faster ,I haven't noticed the fan going on more

a good ,fast ,cheap cold weather mod

It definitely warms up faster! I had some pipe wrap left over and did my buddy's '06 Jetta gasser and he was impressed at how quickly it warms up.

Is this mod an alternative to the more pricey block heaters? I can't seem to find a block heater for my 2010.

Spindrift said:

Is this mod an alternative to the more pricey block heaters? I can't seem to find a block heater for my 2010.

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Not at all, in fact it's best to use it in conjunction with the heater, especially in a cold location.

Frostheater.com only sells kits for all TDI's up to 2009, but I'm going to stick my neck out and say that the 2009 and 2010 models are fairly similar under the hood. I doubt they'd scrap the CBEA motor after 1 model year so that's probably the case but I might be wrong, so you should probably find out for sure. I'm sure you could email the owner of Frostheater and he'd be able to tell you.

Spindrift said:

Is this mod an alternative to the more pricey block heaters? I can't seem to find a block heater for my 2010.

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This is the VW OE coolant heater. I don't know which US dealers carry this. It's rather expensive though

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=196203

Otherwise you want to go with the Zerostart 8000 Series cylindrical tank, which is inexpensive

It is nice that these old posts are dredged up periodically and coincides with the cooler temps. Dug around in my supplies and found a package of 1/2" foam and did the mod to the front end except with a 2000 Jetta, I could only do every other vane but the front seems to seal fairly well. Get to test it out this weekend to see how they hold up on a road trip.

ubercam said:

Not at all, in fact it's best to use it in conjunction with the heater, especially in a cold location.

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I concur. I installed a kilowatt Zerostart and blocking the front grill helps keep the heat in much better.

T_D_I_POWER said:

This is the VW OE coolant heater. I don't know which US dealers carry this. It's rather expensive though

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=196203

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This is not something you can get in the US from a dealer. I checked on it.

joetdi said:

This is not something you can get in the US from a dealer. I checked on it.

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Sorry guys, for the miss info. I thought 1stvwparts carry this part. I know or I should say it was in their catalog when I made the suggestion. My apology.

Hehe awesome... I was just chatting about this... The foam insulation that is...

I like pictures

I am going to try this tonight...... Took a little while for the golf to warm this morning. It must have gotton down to around 8F and had the frost heater on for 3 hours..... Deff. helped it start but it did seem to take a while to warm...

I'm very curious about the benefits of this. Whether or not it will take a noticable chunk of time off the warm up period. It would be nice to actually get up to temperature during my 20 minute commute in -20.

Concat said:

I like pictures

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You do, do ya? Well today is your lucky day.


For my car, the '02 Jetta, I only did every second upper grille crossmember, but it seems to work well. On the bottom I did each one, but my front plate is partially blocking it so I didn't go all the way across with the pipe wrap. This used one 6' length of wrap.



For the A5 Jetta, it took me twice what the A4 used, so about 12' of wrap. For the larger openings in the upper grille, I just cut the wrap to length and squished it into the opening. For the small slits, I cut the wrap in 1/4 or 90° sections and just slid them in the slots. In the bottom grille, the top two pieces on either side of the plate holder don't go all the way across. Works well and doesn't look bad.



I know this is a TDI forum, but many of us have or take care of other vehicles too sometimes. The Envoy needed 6' since it's only got an upper grille. I needed zip ties to hold the upper and lower pieces in, but it looks better than a piece of cardboard. No complaints yet!

So I only got half of this done before my hands became frozen solid.... Dont know what the weather channel is smoking sure feels much colder than 20F.


TIP

Dont be a moron like I was and buy the more rubbery stuff as it gets stiff and has memory in the cold. It also has the sticky stuff on it that i dont want on my car. I will be replacing this with the other stuff in the pictures.

Happy First snow storm everyone should be here in a day or so