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So, two weeks ago I did the water pump, fan clutch, and fan. It's been running like a dream for about 500 miles since. Temps are great, good power etc.
Today on the way home from the mountains, it's accelerating on to the highway, and at about 60mph a sudden loud explosion noise from the bay, smoke, oil, etc. But the engine kept running. Pulled it off quick and shut it off.
Oil and coolant dumping out. Did I vent the block? No. It appears the brand new cooling fan just randomly grenaded itself, sending plastic shards moving at 4500 rpms in every direction like a frag grenade. It tore through the new thermostat, the oil cooler line, the radiator, the radiator shroud, the airbox, and who knows what else.
An easy weekend of work and $1000 in parts plus a trip to the junkyard for plastics. Ugh. What the actual funk.
Did I somehow do something wrong? I attached the new fan to the new clutch and it all seemed great. Spun well without wobble. It is a "heavy duty" fan clutch as recommend by others here. Some general internet wizards think a heavy duty clutch might make the fan spin too fast? I dunno.
1) The fan is stock. Where did you buy it?
2) Is the fan clutch a Uno ? Uno are trash mate. I only use Real Land Rover Lotta Hapla about American Dorman's and Haydens.. well those spin faster than stock and its not proven this is ok yet. For myself I wanna sit back and wait and see before using those products.
3) Did you check the fan after installation to see it if was spinning right or wobbly ?
4) Did you loosen the plastic fan cover so it could make contact with the fan? You got clips that need to be fastened in. If you was workin on that area and forgot ..
This is awful mate. Your lucky you didn't take out your radiator and oil lines. The blades can go though the hood. Friend this happened to lost his hood, lines, hoses the whole kit and kaboodle. He dont know the reason why and did all his maintaining on schedule. This is why I am going to an electric set up. You always here whining from others - no no fan only no no electric will overheat. Mate I know 2 guys with electrics and swear it cools better than the fan. Land Rover really screwed the customers on this. I been Procrastinating this. Your bad luck is motivation I need to get off my rear get out of the fan set up now.
Imagine if this happened in the outback with no help for hundreds of miles? Up the creek without a paddle. What a nightmare. Sorry this happened to you mate.
Last edited by AussieRover111; 11-08-2019 at 09:30 PM.
My question is; Why was the fan still spinning at 60 mph? Isn't this why there is a fan clutch? Air speed surpasses the fan rotation so the fan stops? Maybe?
as soon as I saw the thread title,I knew yet another 99-02 fan had grenaded-look back a ways on here and you will find several other fairly recent threads of 99-02 fans blowing up,the design with the heavy outer ring and slanted blades-lots of stress on the ring at higher RPM and the slanted blades cannot give much radial support.Anyone with this fan should swap it out for one of the well known substitute fans.
I've been running aftermarket fan clutches from Torq Flow, Auto Zone, Imperial, Hayden, and a few others with absolutely no failures or issues for years. I've also been running the Dorman 620-112 fan blade along with them. If that was the OEM fan blade those things are getting old, and since it's black it is VERY hard to spot stress cracks. The 99-02 OEM unit with the ring all the way around it I think actually causes more damage vs an fan blade without the ring. It will fly apart, hang on something, and then go to town once it's out of balance vs a fan blade with individual blades which could toss a single blade without slinging a massing ring around to get stuck on the upper/lower shroud, coolant hoses, oil cooler lines, and the PS hoses.
The only time I ever see 4,500RPM is if I'm dead set on passing someone. Normally I'm in the 2,200RPM to 3,200RPM range cruising down the road at 65-80MPH.
As far as Mechanical vs Efan I've used both and most modern cars are designed with Efans only. They both have their ups and downs neither is perfect. I prefer mechanical myself. The Efan setup's I've tried or seen had **** poor placement, had shrouds that weren't efficient, and they were extremely loud. For a RRC/D1/D2 you're looking at a min of 2,800 RPM fan with probably 3,200RPM being the most efficient. I almost fried a perfect LS3 engine due to a 500.00 so called performance Efan kit. That thing couldn't keep that LS3 cool on a spring morning let alone a TX summer. I hit 237F before it started to rain and it cooled down to 220F. With the mechanical setup I was in the 195F range. Slap any LR in low range, and get the RPM's in the sweet spot for the mechanical fan clutch and watch the temps dip into the 188F range on even the hottest summer days. I find in a D2 using Manual mode and staying in 2nd gear makes for excellent cooling of the engine.
When a D2 isn't running the AC (condenser displacing all that hot air directly in front of the radiator) it cools very good. I personally think 2 smaller higher RPM puller fans would be much more efficient vs the single puller fan the D2 comes with (more like a RRC/D1 setup with 2 fans across the condenser). The D2 does have a drier in the way vs a D1, but I think we could find a better solution puller fan to help with the heat being generated by the AC.
11-08-2019, 05:42 PM
Engine bay explosion, oil, coolant, the works
