My cooling fan shattered today, took out the side of the battery box, ripped one of the lower coolant hoses, destroyed the radiator shroud, dented the bonnet, shredded the sound proofing, holed the rad and also somehow seems to have knocked out the power steering. slighly ironic, as i'd just picked it up from the welders getting the door sills done and spent a few quid....
Coolant system shd be repairable, but the PS has me a bit mystified, no sign of hose damage, and the fan belt still runs the pump. I'll just try topping it up with Diii and see what happens.
I seem to recall this (disintegrating fan) happened to one of us before, but forgot who?
Ooof tough break :(
Dare I ask how old the fan was? I've a sudden desire to replace mine.
Maybe even original, i'd never replaced it in my 4 yrs of ownerahip ( altho swapped out the viscous coupling a couple of years back). All the fan bladed sheared at their base, just the plastic boss and viscous unit remained
My fan failed the same way about a year ago. Also suspect it was probably the original.
Inspecting it afterwards, I think if I'd removed the fan and inspected the join between the blades and cup that fits over the viscous coupling I might have spotted tiny cracks starting to form.
Mine let go as I accelerated from a standstill and let go with quite a bang at probably around 4k rpm.
Wow Rob, bad luck. I would like to think that usually when a fan breaks it wouldn’t do that much damage.
Mine let go as I accelerated from a standstill and let go with quite a bang at probably around 4k rpm.
Mine was v similar...stuck behind a bicycle, and then I accelerated past it, followed by a loud bang as the blades hit the underside of the bonnet. Although I doubt i managed anything like 4k :o)
Sorry to hear, I had the same happening to me, in addition to all the damage described above, I also had - have, as I have no mended them yet - a little squashed the gearbox to oil cooler pipes.
Mine was also original, and this occurred a few weeks after replacing the viscous and the water pump.
I put the culprit in the work done, which somehow de-stabilized the fan and accelerated its destruction, but I guess will never know.
On the other hand, thanks to this I found out my rad was 1/3 clogged, and this was the reason for my perennial engine heat/overheat.
So I think the fan failure was a result of fatigue from "over working".
Unfortunately, I still have not replaced the hood, but worse, I cannot find a sound deadener in reasonable condition ....
Mine also took the belt cover and the top hose.
Just imagine what would happen if the bonnet is open and someone working on the engine ....
That doesnt bear thinking about
Harv wrote:
Wow Rob, bad luck. I would like to think that usually when a fan breaks it wouldn’t do that much damage.
At 50 quid for a new one you may not want to take the risk : o) this failure is starting to sound fairly common
Mine took out anything with oil in it, so the transmission cooler hoses, engine oil cooler hoses, power steering reservoir. It didn’t touch anything with water in it, however for good measure it shredded the under bonnet mat (found a NOS one), bent the bonnet (found a S/H one and painted it to match), destroyed the fan shroud (S/H one again) took the side out of the battery box, but left the battery intact (S/H one again). Spent a day under the car with soap and a pressure washer trying to get rid of all of the oil.
Had a S/H fan so checked it out, and yes, on close inspection cracked blade roots.
New viscous coupling. A common misconception is that these should lock up when hot. They should NEVER lock up, just slip less when hot. If locked, and the engine is revving hard, the fans will explode as the rim speed is around 12,000m/min or around 700km/h,
At 50 quid for a new one you may not want to take the risk : o) this failure is starting to sound fairly common
To be honest, I did order a new one, I opened the box and ... left it there. I went and got a 2nd hand OE.
The quality is really SH*Tpart for this item, at least the one I got delivered ...
Yes its a common problem for the P38. Mine took out almost all the radiator hoses, the shroud, and made a big dent on my hood. Replaced the water pump, shroud, viscous fan, and fan blade at the same time so I won't be paranoid about it anymore.
You lot have made me paranoid now. I'm setting off to drive the 1,600 miles home tomorrow and I've just been outside to examine my fan. No sign of any cracks fortunately. Not sure what I would have done if I'd found any though, try to find a 36mm fan spanner, take it off and hope I didn't encounter any traffic I assume.
By the way, I'm not up at stupid o'clock, I'm 2 hours ahead of the UK at the moment.
Has anyone ditched their OE fan setup and fitted electric fans instead? I did a re-chassis job on a bit of a Series 3/ Defender 90 hybrid Land Rover a couple of years ago and swapped out the aged Kenlowe fans for a pair of fans taken from a SAAB 9-5. They were pretty much a perfect fit in their original SAAB housing. The quality is excellent, and I've never seen them fail. They're readily available on auction sites very cheap.
I have a pair in the workshop with the intention of using them on my Vogue SE - the OE fan is not in good condition, and the horror stories of their failure have always worried me!
It probably wouldn't take me long to get them fitted, but I have a shocking to-do list at the moment....just wondering if someone has already done it, and what solution did they use for controlling the fans - by the way, the SAAB fans are designed to run either very quietly, connected in series, or in parallel for maximum cooling, so with a little ingenuity they would make a good solution.
Sloth did it on his see https://rangerovers.pub/topic/534-v8-electric-fan-conversion
Yeah, and is a good idea indeed!
I ditched mine for a revotec fan after hearing the horror stories.
The issue is that an electric fan, no matter how good, will never shift the volume of air the standard one will, with the exception of very low revs/idle.
The standard fan takes a few hp to drive when the car is working, I have seen estimates of over 5hp. About the best electric fan will only ever be good for is something in the range of 600W and that would be drawing 50A.
OK, you guys have initiated a level of nervousness I didn’t have previously. I have been out to examine my fan but can find no sign of fatigue or cracking, indeed it looks pretty damn good. I have now put a fan inspection on my list of preventative maintenance activities/schedule but what exactly should I be looking for as an indication it should be changed before a horror show ‘explodes’ on the scene?