Electric fan advice

Have a google thru this group for the various opinions - this subject has been done to death here several times.

On Tue, 2 May 2006 22:16:16 +0100, "Tony Boyle" scribbled the following nonsense:

having used both, I would now stick with the viscous everytime. Landrover+Mud+water+leccy fan= dead electrics and engine

Since the viscous unit has, pretty much, the same "energey saving" features as an electric fan, then there is little in it. The one very big disadvantage of electric fans is failure - and modern engines detsroy themselves very quickly with no cooling.

Richard

On or around Wed, 03 May 2006 08:17:44 +0100, beamendsltd enlightened us thusly:

'course, the viscous unit can fail "free" and as such not provide good cooling, but that's only one failure mode - if it fails "stiff" then you get the fan running more than you want, which is less than optimally efficient but doesn't risk blowing the engine.

My observation of viscous units is that the most common thing to happen is that it doesn't free off when it should, although they can no doubt fail to lock up again when they should as well.

There's also more of a roadside bodge factor available - if you find that the viscous unit is not locking up and the engine's overheating, then to get you running you just have to find a way of jamming it so it's solid, and have a permanent fan. A blown electric fan motor can't be made to go again...

Thanks for the advice, I will buy a replacement viscous fan as you suggest.

Tony