Viscous Fan

My vote: New one. What does the team think ?

Steve

I've got one that rotates freely all the time, and thence does not cool the engine at all. I'd prefer one that's locked up....

Alex

Julian Pollard uttered summat worrerz funny about:

Replace with standard.

Lee D

New one

Get a new one, matey. My 'other' Rangie had a Kenlowe when I bought it and I've just had it converted back to viscous because of a spate of overheating probs caused by broken contacts temp' sensors etc ... and, finally, the electric motor just plain failed.

Regards,

Colin

A new on it is - thanks chaps

On or around Tue, 24 Jul 2007 21:01:37 +0100, "Julian Pollard" enlightened us thusly:

If it's locked at least it'll not overheat.

but replacing as others said is the best option.

note that they spin anyway for the first 30 seconds or so after a cold start. The difficult thing to find out is whether it cuts in again when things get hot... anyone found a good way of doing that without cooking the engine?

Never tried it but can't we just start it with the bonnet open, note the amount of air being pushed around, drive til hot then quickly pop the bonnet again and see if it's blowing a gale in there? Thing is, how to tell if it's got hot enough for the fan to actually cut in..

IIRC the fan needs heat and centrifugal force to work, so just heating it with hot water or a blow torch won't help..

It can't need that much heat to activate surely given that the only heat source it has is air from the rad or heat soaking up the fan mounts?

In fact, how about using a hairdryer on it while the engine is cold?

On or around Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:18:52 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

no, 'cos it doesn't lock up again 'til it's considerably over normal operating temp, IME. The only time I've seen one do it was during an LPG tuning session, which involves running the engine at 3000 rpm standing still for several minutes. The fan cutting in happened well above normal operating temperature and was unmistakable when standing beside it with the bonnet up :-) I was wondering if there was a way of testing it without overheating the engine...

Well if I had any need for a hairdryer I'd try one on a running engine, or perhaps just *gently* heating the housing with a blowlamp then starting the engine.

I've tested them by using a hot air paint stripper (carefully) on the 'spring' while on the bench.

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Anyone managed to fit one on a series?

I have the same problem on my SD1 EFI. The viscous coupling simply doesn't lock - although the aux fans come on when the rad temp tells them to. Seems wrong to me as on my BMW the fan locks up - you can hear it by the fan noise - long before the aux fan (unless the AC is selected where they run all the time) The fluid coupling on the BMW is near identical to the SD1 one and from the same maker.

All the ones I've seen are the same basic design - they fit on the end of the waterpump spindle via a cap nut with left hand thread. So unless a suitable waterpump is available I'd guess it very difficult to retro-fit one.

Might be possible to make up a suitable waterpump by mixing and matching bodies and spindles - dunno.

On or around Sat, 28 Jul 2007 11:24:20 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)" enlightened us thusly:

The adapter mostly comes off the spindle if you hit it hard enough... and there are right-hand ones although they're unusual.