The recent thread about air deflectors got me thinking: What purpose do the air deflectors in the '53-'55 trucks serve? They don't force air into the radiator. It looks like the louvers force the air up. Then what? does the inside of the hood force the air down over the engine? And then does the moving air help force out gasses from the engine compartment and onto the road?

Just curious???

Thanks!

 

Well, There is a piece of rubber between the front valance and the rad and there is a rubber strip between the hood and rad. That appears to be a 50s way of routing air.

I think the deflectors job was holding the grill in place. It appears there wasn't much concern about air flow in the 50's. Trucks were just for work.

I drove a 54 Mercury Sun Valley (plastic front half of roof) to Calif. in 1957 (I was 16). Sure was hot when we went across (that canister on the window was a real loser) the desert, but it never did over heat.

Chuck

 

Cannister in the window...y'all mean that round accessory cooler that looked awful, and never worked? Hope your Sun Valley still had the removable cover over the green plexiglas roof. Without it, the interiors of those cars got hotter than Sun Valley ever got!

 

I know on my '56 Victoria, which had a removable air deflector across the top of the rad support, an old mechanic told me at Carlisle that it was removed during the winter and reinstalled during the summer, to focus the air through the radiator to efficiencise the cooling.

Is efficiencise a word? : )

Using that thought process might account for the usage on the trucks.

Paul

 

Yep it was the swamp cooler in fact we (my mother,sister and myself) even had the desert water bag hanging from the hood ornament. No, for some reason the cover over the plastic roof was missing. Crossed the desert during the night, still to hot.

I got to drive the entire trip (at 16 I thought that was cool), I'm sure that we drove part of the original route 66. We were moving out to Riverside Calif. but by the time we arrived my Dad lost another job so after a few days back to Michigan we went.

Been driving out to Las Vegas every year for the last 30 some yrs (Inlaws(both gone now),one kid, two grandkids and three great grandkids live out there), it's starting to get old (or maybe we are).

Chuck

 

Remember you need to put the design into historical context: interstates were first being constructed in the 50's (not for transportation necessarily, but were meant to serve as emergency airforce runways after the first wave of a nuclear attack wiped out most military bases). Most major highways were 2 lane, secondary roads were often not even paved, and people were not in a major rush to get anywhere because they didn't usually go more than 20 miles from home. Trucks were "low-class necessity vehicles" for farmers and laborers, not daily drivers, so low speed cooling was the concern. The deflectors routed most of the front air thru the radiator with some engine cooling thru the louvers. It was sealed all around to direct fan drawn air thru the rather small narrow radiators, a design throwback to the 30-40s when vehicles still had narrow vertical grills and separate fenders. Today we take our trucks out of that context and place them into modern use, where 20 mile trips won't get you to the closest mall, and we take expressways everywhere. Then we add an AC condenser, a big high compression engine, and fill the interior with people and electronics, and wonder why the original cooling system wasn't designed to handle the load.

 

A little more road history. The US Army crossed the US on the "new" Lincoln Highway just after it opened. The trip took four months! Most of the highway was was packed earth west of Iowa. Dwight Eisenhower was with the truck convoy.

Eisenhower was Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces-ETO = European Theater of Operations during WWII. He was very impressed by the German Autobahns, and on becoming president in 1953, made the new Interstate Highway System one of his goals. He signed the act in 1955, making him the father of the Interstate Highway System.


More useless trivia = first paved highway in the US = the Vanderbilt Parkway in NY. First freeway in the US = Arroyo Seco Parkway (1940) now known as the Pasadena Freeway.

 

Number Dummy,
You must watch the History Channel like me. Just saw something about that recently.

The first 4 lane, divided, limited access, toll road was the Pennsylvania Turnpike. First opened in the late 30's. Ran from just west of Harrisburg to just east of Pittsburgh. Expanded from Harrisburg East to Lancaster after WWII. Bought land from my grandfather for the rightaway in northern Lancaster County. It divided his 2 farms. That would have been the late 40's.

 

The first interstates were required to have 2 miles of straight road every 10 miles (for landing strips) and had much more sub base than a normal road required to support the weight of heavy bombers. They were paved in concrete for the same reason.

 

Route 66 gets all the attention today, but it was never a Trans-Continental Highway. Route 66 began at Wacker Drive in Chicago, and ended at the intersection of Santa Monica Blvd and Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica CA.


Route 66 was originally officially called the National Old Trails Highway. After Will Rogers death in 1935, Route 66 was renamed the Will Rogers Memorial Highway, which is still the official name today.


The Lincoln Highway was Trans-Continental, from NY to San Francisco. It was the brainchild of Henry Bourne Joy, who was president of Packard. The entire highway was paid for by the auto manufacturers, the petroleum industry and the tire industry, not one cent of public money was used. Interstate 80 follows much of the Lincoln Highway today. There's a recent book on the history of the Lincoln Highway. I have it, but where it is, is anyone's guess.