winter front grill cover

Detroit recommendations:

There are two specific situations where a winter front may be temporarily needed:

• To improve cab heating while idling under extreme cold ambient temperature
• When the ambient temperature remains below -30°C and the engine is unable to maintain running coolant temperature of 80°C during normal on road operation.

If either of the above situations is encountered, then a winter front may be temporarily used. A minimum of 25% of the grill must be open in sectioned stripes that run perpendicular to the charge air cooler tube flow direction. This assures even cooling across each tube and reduces header-to-tube stress and possible failure.

 

Found it! Unfortunately its the only one I have.

 

We called those blanket wraps. If you look closely you see the grille is covered only with a screen type material. The padded blanket is on the exposed fiberglass. Really helped with the cold in winter, and the heat in summer.

 

This is the only photo I could find....

 

I can attest to the necessity of this after having the steering gearbox freeze up while driving down the highway with 140,000 lbs of truck and gasoline strapped to my ###.

 

In the automotive world, those are called "bras"
...and then you've got the panties

 

I wish I could dig up the article from a couple of years ago that had the Technology Maintenance Council's take on winter fronts on newer engines. In it they stated that winter fronts actually do improve things for the newer EPA engines. They determined that there was slightly better DPF and SCR performance due to the exhaust not cooling too quickly compared to an open front end.

Either way, I use winter fronts and have for decades. In Alaska, we had automatic louvers in the grill that would close or open as needed during the cold temps.

 

My KW has those shutters. Taking them off though. Weight reduction lol.

 

I have DD15 505 hp, i went to the dealership to buy one winter grill cover but they said it is not recommended for the Detroit diesel motor. It was -17 last night and At high speed, temp was ok but when slowing down or idling for some time brings the temperature down significantly. Any opinions on that. Truck is a 2014

 

Read post #21. @uncleal13 explains DD recommendations.