Front mounted cooler racks and air flow

Took the truck to the Outerbanks this weekend and forgot how much I loved surf fishing. I am going to buy a camper somewhere in the 35' range and suspect that with the trailer and all the other stuff people drag to the beach I will be towing around 8500lbs with there being about 200 extra lbs in the truck. I want to put a cooler rack on the front (black of course) and was wondering what kind of effect it will have on cooling. The cooler I have is 46" wide and will come up to the bottom of the "Toyota" logo in the grill.

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

 

Seems like it would be blocking considerable air flow. Could be a problem on really hot days. Could be. Might not do anything. Only one way to find out. I really like that Tundra by the way.

 

Yeah, I though about giving it a go, but that would be an $800 experiment if it did not work well..lol

 

Smaller cooler? What about a roof rack? Maybe too cumbersome for a cooler though.That's what I want to get.

 

or put the cooler in bed close to back window... back window goes down... drink in hand... window goes back up! Nothing for you, your driving Plus, do you want a cooler full of dead bugs?

 

Very good!

Cooler could look like this:




I'm thinking the cooler in front may be not so great and not because of overheating issue.

 

I am going to put a cap with racks on her as well, but we will most likely use that for kayaks or paddle boards. The cooler on the front is more for convenience. Seems like it's every 30 seconds that someone wants something out of the cooler and having it there would be perfect. The cooler is a 160qt, and actually looks small in front of the Tundra's huge front end.

 

Man, I almost rather have my cooler look like that, than my poor truck..lol

 

Your Yeti is bigger than my Yeti.

 

Good point. How about on rear receiver hitch or on back of the trailer that you might be towing? Or front of trailer?

 

Really needs to stay with the truck as we will be leaving the trailer in the camp ground while we are on the beach. Unfortunately, there are pro's and cons to every configuration.

 

If your are making a short cruise to the beach, put it up front then. Shouldn't have over heat issues .

 

This doesnt sound right on so many levels.

 

My biggest concern if I were going to be towing in excess of 8500 lbs with my cooling system partially blocked would be do I have sufficient air flow in slow moving traffic and most importantly how will this affect my transmission cooler cause an overheated tranny is gonna bite you in the a** sooner or later!

 

The more I think about this the more I am sure I would nix the idea. Too many variables. You don't see too many setups like that for a reason in hot climes. I vote no.

 

Even though this is something I wouldn't do unless it was cooler temps and wanted food storage out front, you are probably going to be all right. Back in the day, grills had a lot more access to air flow than now. I've seen coolers and such mounted on the front of various rigs but often times with smaller items that won't severely block air flow. You in fact may get more than enough air flow. Not sure about that in slow traffic as mentioned before. You mentioned you were only going to use it for short cruises to the beach I think. Try it out. If you see the "beginning" of an abnormal temperature increase then pull over and check it out and remove it if you think you have to. There may be a lot of folks with that setup but every vehicle has its own unique air flow/cooling characteristics. Some people may be running at hotter than normal temps for long periods of time which isn't exactly a good thing. Especially on trannys. I can't remember how many times I've seen folks pulled over to the side of the road over the years because of over heating issues. You have too, that's why you have legitimate concerns and rightly so. You might consider a thermostat change too to compensate for "possible" higher temps. I'm just trying think of things that may help you out.

 

I would be concerned about someone walking off with my $600 - $800 yeti.

 

and the drinks...