radiator repairs; the Bachelor effect

 

Continuing the saga of the '99 YZ winter rebuild...

I sent the radiators off to Myler's radiator repair. Both lower tabs
were cracked, and the 80's tab was completely broken. Had them do
their rebuild/reinforce special. I've used this company several times
before.

They came back a few days later looking like a 14 year old girl trying
to apply lipstick for the first time.

They had all 3 been painted with a THICK coat of GLOSSY black paint. I
got them back Monday I can still smell the solvent evaporating from
them. They shine like a waxed and buffed Arai helmet. I was kinda
flummoxed. Didn't expect this at all. The original radiators of these
bikes all had a very thin coat of flat black paint of some
sort--somewhere along the line the oem's decided no paint was better
and newer off-road bikes all have bare aluminum radiators. But glossy
paint???

I am a little worried that the paint is plugging some of the more
bent-up fin-passages. I've taken a thin blade and straightened out a
few. There's definitely paint in there but it looks like poking
delicately around them to straighten will free up the passages.

I think the emissivity of a radiator would be maximized by a *flat*
black surface and glossiness is undesirable. I wrote an email to
Myler's asking about this, what paint was used, etc. in a spirit of
polite curiosity and got back a terse "we went to that paint
because people were complaing about the flat paint."

Allright, what think ye? Thermodynamics 'R Us.

I'm going to scour them with a rag soaked in laquer thinner to get the
gloss off.

And if I ever send them back to Mylers will specify NO PAINT.

--
Charles
'99 YZ250

 


Difference between flat and gloss, or what color, is pretty small.

Thickness of the paint (insulation) and physically reducing and
blocking passages, possibly a significant effect.


Dave

 

Any organic material (such as paint), will be at least 2 orders of
magnitude lower in thermal conductivity than any metal.  A shame they
felt the need to paint them.

-Jeff-

 

In article


Yeah. I was kinda disappointed :(

Time for Whelan to step in here and rant...I need to learn aluminum
welding, because I'd sure rather have done this myself than pay what I
did for a stupid-pet-trick of a job. Funny thing is, having used them
before, I thought this was going to be one of the smoothly
accomplished steps.

--
Charles
'99 YZ250

 

On 02/10/2010 10:16 AM, HardWorkingDog wrote:


Never underestimate the possibility of a business retaining its old name when
it changes hands.  I got stung that way at a local frame shop once :-(

--
Cheers, Bev
Far away in a strange land