MooMoo,
unless you have a real time scanner to monitor the engine temp, you can only drive less than 5 minutes from a cold engine. after that 10 minutes off and no more than 2 min on.
An alternative is to hot wire the a/c fans on... but you have to remove the front grille to get to the wires.

the $30 to $50 fix is to get the fans (double fan unit) from a ford contour... Remove the l/r shroud, cut 2 tiny slots at the bottom of the contour shroud to fit the bottom of the rad and 2 more at the top for the l/r clips... wire it directly to the batt. (there are 2 wires from the connector: one is for the Low speed (through a resistor) and the other for High. It draws less than 21 amps at start up so you don't need a fancy relay if you choose to keep the e-fan longer.

The rotational inertia of the Contour fans is low compared to the Crown Vic single fan which can be installed into the L/R shroud with a bit too much fiddling for my liking. The C. Vic requires a 70 amps relay.

When you pull the Contour fan assembly, take the fuse box too: it contains two 70 amps relays but the sockets are different than the normal 30/40 amps ones. ALSO get the Temp sensor right behind the thermostat housing if you think you'll want to convert to e-fans.

If you choose to go electric, PM me and i'll share how to wire it on a thermostat.

Best of luck and don't overheat the engine...

SD

 

I will copy down what you wrote soccer dad if I chose to go that route. What I have been reading in here however people say that the ac fans will help to cool the engine if it is running too hot but if it is running hot it is not because the a/c fans are not working. I will get to them soon enough though.

I found a good shop of honest mechanics a couple blocks from my house and took rover to them today to help me get the fan off. They agreed that there was no way I was going to get that thing off in the back yard.

They let me get in there under the hood with them....they had to put some heat on it with a torch and then use a pneumatic fan clutch tool (200 dollar tool) that you hook up to an air hammer that was the only way it was going to come off of there...even then it took them a little while....I drove it home and had the conversion done and on in an hour....so yes hypothetically it takes an hour. Yes it should come of really easy if it isn't the original...which I am assuming this was.

I drove the back roads avoiding the freeway to get it to the e-check and so tomorrow I can go buy tags for her. yay! It didn't get as hot as quick but....sitting at an idle she was still wanting to creep up there. I still need to flush out the radiator and change the fluids though and I am thinking this will do her just fine...if not I have a new thermostat rated at 180 degrees....I might end up doing that any way not sure yet. As far as the ac fans go well I will get to that soon...I have other fish to fry and other vehicles to work on wow is me

 

With a perfectly good working cooling system you can drive with no engine fan for as long/far as you want.
The engine fan provides no engine cooling while driving, it is only while idling that the fan cools the engine.
And the purpose of the fan clutch is to let the fan "freewheel" when the fan is not needed and to lock up when the engine gets hot enough to need cooling.
Freewheeling the fan lessens the amount of drag on the engine which increases MPG.
So when the engine is idling and the fan is spinning that is only because of the friction between the fan clutch shaft and the clutch.
I have never done this, but you can stop the fan from spinning with a rolled up newspaper if the fan clutch is not locked and is working properly.