Self destructing fan

[Speerzie]

Hi chaps,
got in the car after work yesterday and fired the beast up, and fook me the noise it made for a second or two was horrendous like the world had ended, but then it stopped and seemed to be running fine, so drove home steadily, popped the bonnet and found that the fan cowling had come off the radiator and wedged its self into the fan smashing the top off the cowling and breakig a fin off the fan so out with the cable ties and fix whats left of the cowling back to the radiator.

But the missing fin is now causing a real bad imballance and the whole engine is vibrating like hell at idle, I guess this will fuck up my nice new water pump in no time, so need to fix it at the weekend.

I have a electric fan from a 318i auto, could I fit that to the rad somehow and do away with the viscous?
I dont have the relitive parts like temp sensors etc so could I just wire it up off a temporary switch and use the fan if im sitting in traffic?
I HAVE to use the car as it is for work tomorrow( 70 mile round trip) but will be nervous that its going to break on me.

[Stal1878]

Yes, cable tie your electric fan into the rad and wire up a switch for it.

You will only need to use it if your sitting in traffic for a long time.

[Speerzie]

nice one mate, obviously I will wire it up properly when I have the parts, I would think it would be ok the majority of the time, only needing the fan occasionly?

[Stal1878]

The above pics with give you some idea. That was permanent though as I removed my viscus altogether.

I don't think I ever "had" to use it, I just put it on when I was in a traffic jam or on really, really hot days.

[Ferret]

I HAVE to use the car as it is for work tomorrow( 70 mile round trip) but will be nervous that its going to break on me.

In this situation, if it was my car, i'd get the viscous fan off the car. As you said yourself, it's going to damage the water pump.

My M54 lump doesn't have a viscous fan, and only 1 pusher fan, and i've only ever heard it once. That was sat in traffic for a while, in scorching heat.

IF you find yourself in the situation where you are in traffic and concerned about heat, or the engine temp starts rising, then turn your heaters upto FULL, and the fan up full blast too, set to the face vents and open the windows That'll cool the engine off just the same.

[Speerzie]

In this situation, if it was my car, i'd get the viscous fan off the car. As you said yourself, it's going to damage the water pump.

My M54 lump doesn't have a viscous fan, and only 1 pusher fan, and i've only ever heard it once. That was sat in traffic for a while, in scorching heat.

IF you find yourself in the situation where you are in traffic and concerned about heat, or the engine temp starts rising, then turn your heaters upto FULL, and the fan up full blast too, set to the face vents and open the windows That'll cool the engine off just the same.

Ok jusp oppped out and took the viscous off, hopefully it will be ok tomorrow, in fact two fins have broken off it so no wonder it was out of ballance

[e36coupe-328]

then turn your heaters upto FULL, and the fan up full blast

This does work well as heater matrixes are more efficient that rads.


Back in the old days we used to trim down the blade(s) opposite to make them spin even lol.


And finally the useful bit, you can get boses to insert into pipes to take thermostatic switches, because one day you may forget and cook your engine.

[Speerzie]

This does work well as heater matrixes are more efficient that rads.


Back in the old days we used to trim down the blade(s) opposite to make them spin even lol.


And finally the useful bit, you can get boses to insert into pipes to take thermostatic switches, because one day you may forget and cook your engine.

That was what I was planning, will try and get the bits together and fix it asap

[Speerzie]

In this situation, if it was my car, i'd get the viscous fan off the car. As you said yourself, it's going to damage the water pump.

My M54 lump doesn't have a viscous fan, and only 1 pusher fan, and i've only ever heard it once. That was sat in traffic for a while, in scorching heat.

IF you find yourself in the situation where you are in traffic and concerned about heat, or the engine temp starts rising, then turn your heaters upto FULL, and the fan up full blast too, set to the face vents and open the windows That'll cool the engine off just the same.

Really nervous now about using it without the fan, half of the journey is motorway, should be ok though?

[Devil]

Really nervous now about using it without the fan, half of the journey is motorway, should be ok though?

I have used the heaters to cool the engine a few times - Just hope its not a hot day and all your windows work