I have a 40 Ford coupe with a warmed up Merc Flathead. Its always had a problem in traffic idling getting hot. Is it okay to put a helper pusher fan on the outside for running in traffic? And I know this is going to get all kinds of comments, how about ataching it through the fins with the pads and zip things?
Do you have a shroud on the mech one? If not, I'd go that route before proceeding with a fan-dangled 'lectric gizmo.
So maybe this will save you from some flack http://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/2003/02/electricfan/index.php that way you won't be using some fan "Made in China" and you will have "Ford in a Ford" that is budget friendly and it has it's own shroud.
I only run an electric fan and its on the outside of the raidator pulling the cool air thru it. I can sit in traffic forever and not get hot even on the hottest days. But with that being said I also have an open hood and your 40 doesnt. I do have a friend with a 40 who had the overheating problems in traffic and he put two small electric fans above each other because of the tallness of the radiator and it worked for him....hope you get it fixed.
I think that a pusher fan is counter productive. I have done the through the core with zip ties thing and it is not a good idea, even if you radiator doesn't come apart the ties will eventually rub a hole in a tube.
I have a mechanical fan on my 47 aerosedan and while it stays cool in normal driving, it would heat up in slow traffic or cruzin event grounds. I added a pusher electric on the front side of the radiator controled by a toggle switch under the dash. It works great and doesn't affect the temp at road speeds.
Agreed ! Always make a decent mount for the electric fan , keep it as close to the rad core as possible but DO NOT mount it directly on the rad. It will vibrate and eventually rub through a tube as Porknbeaner has said . I prefer to set an elec fan up with a thermo switch wired through a relay so that the fan takes care of itself . .
The only time I could see an electric pusher fan is for parade duty. A shroud should help if you have the right radiator sized for the engine. Maybe a different ratio on the belts to spin the pumps a bit faster or slower. Depends on the air vs water flow
Nothing wrong with using an electric fan but Porknbeaner has it right. Pushers restrict airflow. Use a puller.
Unless a person is building a trailer queen their very first priority is to make the car as safe as possible and as enjoyable as possible. If attaining those two goals requires putting some "correctness" aside, so be it. There is nothing worse than driving a hot rod where you have to keep your eye on the temp gauge and sweating bullets at every red light........I have been there and never want to go back. I am running a stroker sbf in my 27 and the radiator is chopped 8 1/2 inches from stock, so cooling capacity is on the edge. For years I tried every mechanical fan, shroud, and coolant additive I could find and the damn thing would still creep up at lights and in stop and go traffic. Finally, I went to a 16 inch SPAL fan and the car NEVER goes over 180 now, usually 170. I can sit and idle for hours and the temp never climbs over that. So people can say what they want about electric fans looking bad, and I really could care less. It is more important to me to be able to drive my car anywhere on Florida's hottest day and not even have to think once about it boiling over. My car was built to use, period. Put a SPAL on it and be done with it, is my advice. However, cars like your 40 can have a problem getting rid of trapped heat anyway, due to the confined engine compartment. Stuff like louvers and as much airflow as possible can really make a huge difference. All that hot air needs a way to escape. Don
I have the same set up as Fat 47 and it works very well. I only run it when in heavy traffic or setting at a long light in hot weather. Never use it on the road or in cool weather.
As already stated, get a thermostatic switch of somekind to control it. Otherwise, you will kick yourself in the ass everytime you realize you forgot to turn the fan off. Won't hurt anything, but why put the extra stress on the alternator if you don't need to? The electric fan should only run at slow speeds and idle. Any other time it is spinning needlessly. Built a 36 ford fo a customer. Has a 283 in it. WIth the new rad we had to get, there was no room for a mechanical fan. So we used 2 small push fans. Works great! Stays cool even with the A/C running on high.
Thanks I knew there would be lots of different opinions on this. I do have a new aluminum radiator, no shroud, 150 louvers in the hood. The car runs super cool as long as it stays at at least 20 mph even in 100 degree heat. Just gets hot at lights and takes a long stretch to get it cooled down after it gets hot. Downtown Austin traffic killed me last year at LSRU. I see above that a couple of you run pushers just for the situation. I know it would be better to run a puller but just didn't want to get rid of the stock fan to do it.
I have a 327 in my '31. I installed a shroud which helped, but on hot days, the temperature still crept up, especially at traffic lights. I then added a thin cheap 12 inch push fan in front of the radiator, but behind the grill (people don't even know it's there.). I have a remote switch to turn it on only when necessary. The push fan really did the trick. Don't be bullied into thinking a shroud will be your cure-all. They aren't.
Shroud plus see about blocking off any air flow in front of the radiator, above the hood latch plate. late 40's fords have a sheet metal piece that seals between the hood latch plate and the rad. tank. When the car is not moving or moving slowly, the hot air from the engine can be sucked over the top of the radiator and back thru the radiator.
Here is an excellent tutorial on the SPAL website. http://www.a1electric.com/spal/faninfo.htm As far as controllers to turn the fan on and off, I am old fashioned, I like only an on off switch that I control. I watch my gauges like a hawk and in the 20 odd years I have had my 27 rigged this way I have only forgotten to turn the fan on a couple of times. It is just second nature for me to flip the switch on every time I come to a light and turn it off when I am moving again. Some people may not like that, but we have had very bad luck with every fan controller out there. Right now we have a $ 160 SPAL controller that is going into the trash as it has never worked right from day one. I called SPAL and they tell me they stopped selling it altogether. My Son had a different brand burn up on his T bucket one day and he had to hot wire the fan to get home. Maybe some people have luck with them, but I don't for some reason, so I just use a 40 amp relay and switch at the dash. Don
Don't use the zip tie thingys, they will mess up your rad eventually. I use the Spal hangers and "hang" the fan to the rad. The Spal gaskets seal it to the rad. I have a stout 440 in my 66 Coronet and needed two fans - A puller and pusher combo to keep it cool in stopped traffic on 90+ degree days. It never gets over 205F. I also use the Spal controller because I can program it to work like I want. The front pusher fan never turns on until it gets over 200F.
Shroud fitted properly, (plenty of science there) sealing the front so that the fan is sucking air thru radiator and not from around it, the right fan blade,
Thanks for the SPAL link, looks like I should be able to find something there to help. I understand the fan shroud need but I live in Oklahoma and drive to Texas a lot. Its ALWAYS hot during the summers here high 90's to low 100's with humidity in the high 90's as well. A fan shroud might help a little but wouldn't cure the problem completely.
living in alabama, it gets hot and humid. i run a puller fan on a ot nova and my 53 ranchwagon.run them on alot of cars i built that had shrouds and still would run hotter than they should. a puller fan has help each time.
I second Don's advice on thermostatic switches. I've never had one last. All different sorts; in the radiator fins, in the upper radiator hose, in the intake manifold, etc. NEVER had one last and always gave up the ship at the most inoppurtune time. I've also zip tied many things through many radiators and have had no problems. Always used the foam squares and kept the ties tight. That being said, I bracket everything now that I'm no longer young and dumb and consider myself lucky.
If you're concerned about appearance then try the pusher idea first. Get a SPAL fan that's reversible and use hangers like the ones pictured in post #19, or some other means of temporarily mounting the fan. For simplicity use the toggle switch with a relay as Don's Hot Rods suggested.............and see if it works. If it does then you can either leave it the way it is or modify the installation with a fan controller if you want to. If the pusher idea doesn't work for any reason then you can try the same fan as a puller, or try a shroud. Unless you spend a lot of time making a custom shroud for the mechanical fan blades it will be an eyesore.........IMO. There may be someone marketing a shroud for your application, but I don't know who. This guy is great to do business with if you want a SPAL fan. He is knowlegeable and has diagrams on his site. www.the-fan-man.com
How many blades on your mech fan, they make both 4 & 6 I think. What is your electrical setup for 6 or 12 V? these elect fans, draw a lot of current. You may need an alt vs a gen to power it. I had a 6V pusher on mine because I had the 8BA in a 39 and the fan didn't really line up, I later added the mech fan, but kept the elect one as an aux.
If you're talking about the nasty ones that sit under a radiator hose or poke into the fins on the radiator I would agree . I always wire the fan through a decent relay and run the ground for the relay to a PROPER thermo switch . Tridon do a decent one ( TFS-037) which is a " normally open" type with a 3/8 npt male thread . Generally there is a port on or near the thermostat housing that can be utilized for this. .
My '52 Chevy had a problem heating up and not cooling down, even if traffic began to move. With a 3 row radiator, it would run at 180, but if traffic slowed, it would go to 210 and never come down. I installed a 4 row tri-pass and now she runs at 160 with the A/C in stop and go traffic. I run a flex fan with a shroud. With the A/C off, it will idle at 140 all day long.
On my 40 Ford ... with a .060 over 283 ... a 6 blade fan kept the SBC cool in any traffic situation. EVEN ... with a stock, original 40 Ford radiator. A good many cooling problems are not really radiator/fan related. Timing and jetting plays a very MAJOR part in most cases and having these CORRECT solves a lot of so called " cooling " problems.
Let us not forget that HOT to some is operating temp to others. Almost all OEMs today come with at least a 195º thermostat, and hot is over 225º. That said, I run a 195º therm in my '61 Falcon, and it holds that temp all day long, idle to freeway. Soooo, I'd not worry unless you're puking AF onto the ground, or detonating so badly you cannot hear the radio. Running at 220º is not yet over the edge for me, as long as that is as hot as it gets. Also, where you place your temp sensor makes a bit of difference. Cosmo
I'm using a 16" spal fan, mounted with brackets behind the radiator, without a shroud. I can't get the fan far enough from the radiator to make a shroud flow properly, so my fan pulls air through half of the surface of the radiator. It's controlled by an adjustable probe thermostat barely touching the back of the radiator backed up by a dash switch. Belt and suspenders. I'll switch it on if I know I'm driving into stop and go traffic to give it a head start, but it works fine without my input. It's alittle noisey though.
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