Flaps near radiator

I am still learning about my 1995 4.0L. What are the flaps in front of the radiator for, how and why do they work? This seems odd to me. Steve

When the car is at idle and the flaps are down/closed, the radiator fan will suck air in, forcing all air to come through the shroud, cooling the radiator.

When the car is driving, the fan is no longer needed to cool the radiator, so the air comes in through the shroud AND the now open flaps as the air easily forces it’s way in to cool the engine bay.

Without the flaps, the air comes in the easiest path possible, so at idle, the fan would pull air in around the radiator, not through it. The flaps prevent that path, so that the fan can only pull air through the radiator.

I just replaced on my v12 shroud. I used 1/16” neoprene rubber. Your original stuff will be dried out and frail.

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My flaps were made of some type of cardboard which was dried up and very inflexible. Replaced all of them with 3/32 neoprene from McMaster.

Gordon

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I just LOVE the clever workarounds this gang comes up with!!

I spent a good deal of my car career, doing stuff like this, not necessarily out of need, but just because it was fun to engineer a solution.

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Paul it helps when the lady comes out to help.

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James, are you doing that XJS up in Gulf livery? I think we need to see more of it. -John

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My lady…she’s as equally willing to lend a hand!

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For many years – including all the years I owned an XJ-S – my lady was not. Ask her to help out on something, handing me wrenches while flat on my back under the car or whatnot, and she’d pitch in for a minute or two. But let 30 seconds pass – literally – without having to hand me a wrench and she’d be outta there with a “call me if you need more help.”

For some reason she suddenly got much better, though. I don’t ask for help often, but when I do she’s now willing to be there and stay there until done.

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Just make sure she isn’t standing too close to the jack handle…

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She knows the parts fairly well. We just professionally cleaned the injectors this morning. Fuel rail powder coated and will prob put in this evening

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Oh, I wan’t implying that one of our ladies would accidentally “adjust” the jack. Quite the opposite :expressionless:

Exactly bob. She knows just how to adjust the jack when I’m under the car lol

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…:flushed::flushed::flushed:

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When you start something you never know where it will go. Steve

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