stony Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 Anyone ever have a fan clutch go bad where it allows the fan to wobble enough to take out the radiator? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winstonusmc Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 Its not the fan clutch. I noticed in your pic how close your radiator was to your fan. This plastic fans flex as the air is pull rearward. Same thing happened in my car trying to use the larger 280zx fan. It is offset further forward. I mounted my old smaller 240z fan o the same clutch which is about an inch offset further away and didn't have an issue. My radiator is still jacked up but the JB weld is holding..... Those plastic fans just flex too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 Water pump bearing failure and motor mounts allowing excess fore-aft movement. If a clutch locks up, then the over-rev possibility (clutch limits fan to either 2,500 or 4,000 rpms, forget witch--it's in the FSM) can allow tip flexing which in conjunction with motor mounts moving like mentioned above can score round arcs in the core...or outright cut tubes. Generally, though, it's a WP Bearing letting the shaft come out axially....the fan acts like a propeller and pulls it right into the core..... As mentioned, if you use a ZX Fan on an S30, you're asking for a problem, insufficient clearances. Look at the stock distance from the radiator core from fan to core in each chassis and you see them offset about the proper distance. Match that, and short of a bearing failure the two shall never meet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Duncan Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 (edited) Yes I had that happen. The fan clutch seized and I had no money so kept driving it. Then I jammed the brakes one time because of traffic and like Tony says the motor mounts were old and allowed the engine to move forward enough to take out an entire row of tubes. Having no money I soldered them up, so there was a big circular depression in the radiator one row deep. All my stuff now gets an electric fan, better for so many reasons. Edited October 14, 2013 by Chris Duncan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stony Posted October 14, 2013 Author Share Posted October 14, 2013 So how do I tell if its a ZX fan or z fan? I'd swear I have a good inch or so of clearance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stony Posted October 14, 2013 Author Share Posted October 14, 2013 well from this pic it looks like less then an inch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stravi757 Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 Way to close! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 I resorted to going to the junkyard to find a 260Z and getting a fan/clutch assembly off it. Had plenty of ZX fan assemblies out in the yard to compare it to... The 260/280 stack is noticeably shorter, with the S30 assembly "covering more" of the fan clutch assembly, and being much tighter to the water pump. It looks like you have a ZX fan stack on it. Clear access to the water pump mounting studs. The S30 is much tighter to the WP than that one in the photo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HowlerMonkey Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 I have a L28 in an infiniti M30 and used the 240sx fan clutch and swapped the 280zx fan blade to the opposite side of the clutch which gave me the blade tip clearance I needed as well as being able to add washers to space it further back. Remember also that the transmission mount controls quite a bit of the fore/aft engine locating so a new one might help more than new engine mounts which either harden or simply separate rather than get soft in the case of the 280zx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leon Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 I purposely switched to a ZX fan and did a comparison: http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/101984-cooling-fan-for-edis-install/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stony Posted October 17, 2013 Author Share Posted October 17, 2013 Thanks for the info. I just switched to a electric fan. The 3 row champion will cool my bone stock setup just fine with a 14 inch fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.