automated grilleblock

[philip1]

I've been thinking about this for a while and I think I have come up with an acceptable solution. I work with metal so I figured go with what you know. A Stainless steel grille with 3x5 slots cut into it would have a hem top and bottom(see lower right of sketch)this will allow a piece perforated stainless to slide behind. The perforated stainless will have matching 3x5 slots cut into it. a door lock actuator will move the perforated sheet sideways either exposing the slots (for max cooling) or covering them) for max efficiency. thoughts, critiques, and opinions?
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb75/philiprodda/grille.jpg

[BEEF]

just a thought, and first of all that is a good idea. the people on here that are doing partial grill blocks that don't have issues are only leaving an openning about as big as one of your sections. you may be better off just using one slide piece as you described.

the over all idea is great. there was a guy that did something like that with coroplast and a throttle cable but there again I want to say his opening was the size of one of those.

if you do decide to do this, we need pics.

[lunarhighway]

i'm toying around with the same idea, but i haven't decided yet on a sliding vs hinged door. i slider takes us less depth and is perhaps simpler but even when fully open it still blocks the grill for about 50 %.

interestingly yesterday i spotted an automatic grillblock "in the wild" it was a factory installed setup on a bwm 1 series hatchback, i think it was the vavorable light as the block sat quite deep.

it was some sort of "windowblinds" like setup with individually hinged vanes that where shaped to interlock and form a complete internal grillblock behind the topgrill

for now i'm leaning towards a single or multiple hinged door design, opperated by tow strings and a pulley connected to a single electric motor...

one string winds up while the other unwinds. this was there will be some restriction to the door movement when the motor is off so it doesn't flutter about, but also it's the simplest way to convert rotary motion into a 2dimentional movement, and have a reduction at the same time without the need for precise gears.

i hope to build a working off-car prototype over the next weeks, but several issues and parts need to be located so we'll see