Was at a real long stop light on a particularly muggy day this week, both the front and rear AC on full, and BEEEEEEEEEP, heart drops and I look at the scangauge and saw the alarm set for 208 went off. It stayed at 208 for a few moments before plummeting back to 188 once the AC was turned off. That was the first time I've seen anything beyond 202 in years. Should I be concerned with anything? Carry on and stop worrying about nothing? Assuming it would have zero affect on my new-ish head gaskets, right?

 

Keep an eye on it, but I think it's nothing

 

what were ambient temps? how old is the fan clutch?

 

I would not worry about the temp, everyone says that 212 or 227, depending who you ask, is terminal. I had a failed thermostat once and it went to 240 something. everything is still fine. That being said, i would make sure all the cooling parts are in good order, thermostat is a big one, the inline is probably a good use of time and $100 if not for the peace of mind.

 

208 did not hurt anything but I bet you have a fan clutch issue. Do you run unpressurized or full pressure?

 

We should all remember that the DII electric fan doesn't engage until 212°. 208° is nothing to be concerned about.

 

I actually don’t know how old the fan clutch is. I harvested it off a junkyard 2004 a few years ago to get the 03-04 fan.

I’ll order a replacement…is the Hayden 2991 as loud as some say it is? I live in a place with peak ambient temps of 75-ish but do occasionally drive to hotter parts of California. Almost wonder what it’d be like to just swap out clutches for those infrequent trips and run a less powerful clutch for the 80% of the time the disco is here in town.

 

It is noisy for sure....but I dont mind as I'm hard of hearing. reminicient of driving an older 70's truck.

 

Sounds like a Cessna taking off. If you have not recently you might want to review the electric fan blog post on my site and the videos. You can hear the difference there between stock, enhanced, and efan. Also the temperature difference. In CA the fuel economy difference alone pays for itself.

 

Noted about the noise. I'll look into the electric options too. You're not wrong @Extinct haha, currently at the cheapest it's been in years at around $5/gal.

If I go thermal, I'll probably just go stock 2003-2004 TBH. I'm betting a big reason the Dorman fan is so loud is due to the uniform blade spacing. If you look at the OE fan, the spacing is varied to break up the harmonic pitch, and I'm wondering if that's what everyone's experiencing in the absence of that feature.

Has anyone ever installed the Disco 1 fan (looks the exact same as the 03-04 fan but two piece) and Hayden clutch? That kind of looks like the best of all worlds. All the benefits of the quieter stock fan blade arrangement and the upside of being able to choose/replace your own clutch.