Radiator Mesh Protectors

[416cc]

A friend of mine who races his KTM 525 in enduros bought some of these and I managed to get some pictures of them to show.I think i'll get some as well.Not bad for £15 per side.

[AlanH]

There is mesh available on eBay if someone wants to do their own.

Those look a little too restrictive and probably reduces flow by 50% even when clean and dry. By the time it gets wet and muddy, the flow will be really poor. I'd maybe look for something with a slightly more open weave - enough to stop stones but not so much that it'll get clogged easily and toast the bike.

[416cc]

I suppose they could restrict air flow...if they became completely clogged. But my experiance during an enduro up in Wales last year was that debris got into the gaps between the fins of the cooling ducts, and made the problems worse. The fact that there is mesh there that can be more easily and quickly removed than debris that has got right into the fins of the radiator is what matters during an enduro.

As far as the size of the mesh, an aperture of about 1-1.5mm is suitable to pass sufficient air through the mesh so as to give sufficient cooling to the core of the radiator. Any finer and debris that smothers the front of the mesh may well cause the rider to have to clean the front more often than a mesh with a courser size.After all, how big is an air particle?