Many Maverick owners have installed front "spoilers" on their cars, but has anyone installed an air-dam? I'm not really interested in a front spoiler, but I wouldn't mind having an air dam that covers the front cross-member where the strut-rods attach, and the entire width of the car. I don't know where to get the material or how it would mount, but I think it would look good and yield more ground clearance than a spoiler. Anyone have any ideas?
You could make a template out of cardboard to the shape you want and where you want to mount it transfer it to some lightweight steel weld it up with a mig and there you have a one of a kind custom air dam reenforce with some cold rolled steel on the inside or tig weld one out of aluminum I've done some pretty major custom work with my 89.00 Tractor supply mig welder
I just recently added a front spoiler. One of the reasons was to cover the strut rod bushings. The spoiler does not really extend much further down than they do. I would think that it would not be difficult to remove the front valance and use some sheet aluminum or metal and attach it to the trailing edge of the valance extending downwards about 3 or 4 inches.
I imagine that could work. I was originally thinking of a material that more modern cars use for underside splash-shields. Some kind of flexible plastic.
I've studied this for hours on end through the years and it seems a bit tough to retrofit a squarish looking later model airdam to look well done/proportioned. I was originally thinking on retro/hand building an airdam myself for my Comet but decided to merge both designs together into a multi-piece chin spoiler to achieve a sort of hybrid. One which still retains some of the airdams higher functionality but with the more relevant period correct chin spoiler having a higher attack angle. I'll help further your search with this pic below. There have been quite a few guys using S10 front air-dams through the years. I think some retrofits can look good where some others end up looking too mish-mashed or maybe even "tuner-car'ish" for the front end of these older cars. The earliest models(like my old '85 S10 Blazer) are way too narrow and it needs to be sourced from the newer/larger 2nd gen's on up. Here's a nicer example. http://www.hotrod.com/cars/featured/ccrp-1202-1971-ford-maverick-more-than-just-a-name/#photo-01 Otherwise, if you don't find something to chop up in more minimal fashion?.. I would more than likely recommend that you get out the autobody supplies and air tools to start a grindin' and sandin' away to come up with whatever your budget and taste prefers. Not any pro-touring look parts available for these cars yet.. so I'm forced to build it all myself. Hope that helped. PS. when you start looking at some of the real low budget car builds.. you will notice that some have also used regular old lawn edging to help out in the aero department. Anyhting you can do to eliminate more air under the fronts of these old bricks the better off you'll be for higher speed stability(cross winds on the highway too) and mileage improvements.
was hunting for other pic's and ran across this one in one of my computers picture archives.. thought of your question here. https://liamag.com/images/features/ewolk/ellie7.jpg This looks very much like it was made for this car but yet it maintains a fairly subtle toned down style by being stuffed further underneath to not interfere with the original shape and feel of these front ends. Just wish I could find another straight on view from the front and figure out what model he robbed it off. I also like this valance designs ability to block some of the engine bay air too. Very popular mod for the high speed aero guys. Looks well done and really well planned and executed.
