Baffles in or baffles out?

[US6x4]

I was staring at a picture I took years ago of @quarkz M813 at a car show since his truck is such a big brute and I noticed the recirc baffles on both sides of the radiator were flexed outward toward the headlights. This struck me as odd since I've never seen baffles on the outside like that before.



The baffles indeed have a cut in them that allows the upper half to flex around the angled grill guard flat bar which left me thinking that the intended installation is baffles out. Now I hear Ray Finkle from Ace Ventura yelling "baffles out!" in the back of my head.

My truck came with baffles in and most pics of M809s show baffles in, but the TMs show baffles out:





Is anyone else running baffles out?

Is Finkle really Einhorn?

 

[quarkz]

Thanks for the beautiful picture. You made my overcast, smoke filled, day.
Thinking I may have screwed up the baffles during my repair I went back and looked at the the rig's original pictures.
When I recovered the truck from Ft. Hill I had a bit of a '5 Ton Woe' in Burley, Idaho and had to replace said radiator.
The before pictures show baffles out also.
Do you think it might have something to do with Desert Storm vehicles & sand?
Baffles our might not funnel as much dust into the engine compartment.

 

[US6x4]

Dang, that's a knarly gash! What a mess.

I can fit my fingers between the baffles and headlight sheet metal so baffles out would keep sand out better than baffles in. I'm gonna find my David Doyle AM General book and Tankgrad 809 book to see what the vintage pictures show.

Here's another shot of your 5-ton!

 

[US6x4]

The Tankgrad M809 book features US Army and USMC 5-tons stationed in Europe in the '94-'95 time frame and about half of the trucks show baffles out with the other half showing baffles in. AM General corporate photos show baffles out.

I think I'm going to bend my baffles out and paint them to match. I won't see a change in coolant temp but it will keep the rubber away from the fan blades.