I went with the flx 114, the flx 398 did not fit. It is on with the plastic screw deals they give you with the fan. I was really skeptical on those, but they have been solid.

I'd stay with the fan motor swap if you can get your fan out cleanly. I'd prefer to have the fan on the brackets, but the flex a lite fan is working great and is much more powerful. You can feel it there when it is on.

 

Any photos?

 

not handy, no. I am resurfacing my headlights soon, and will take one when I do.

 

here is a pic of the flex a lite 114. It works great. I wish I could figure a way to bracket it in, but the plastic nuts hold it tight, and I check on them here and there.

I think the S blade fans may push more air, but this one is definitely more than adequate.

 

Sorry for letting this thread hang for so long. After a 5 week cross country trip we settled in Eugene about a month ago, and things are going good. Now onto the Rover!

The Rover has been sitting at my inlaws since we left in July. My father inlaw, and brother inlaw have slowly starting poking around to see what's going on. After talking with them yesterday I think we may have figured out the issue. The Rover ran fine for a bit, and then all of a sudden started getting hot. The temps would slowly creep up, and up, and up with what seemed like no stopping it.

They had it running yesterday, and saw that my UltraGauge was reading 200 degrees, and the thermostat hadn't opened at that point. The upper hose entering the radiator was hot like it should be, and the lower hose leaving the radiator was cold like it shouldn't be. That would lead me to believe that my brand new radiator is clogged, and is causing the heating issues. With no circulation through the radiator the coolant is only going to get hotter, and hotter.

At least that's my thinking.

 

Stuck thermostat?

 

I would second the stuck thermostat.

 

3 OEM's all stuck right out of the box? Because those three have been swapped in over the last 4 weeks with the exact same results.

 

The coolant exiting the radiator takes a while to get hot. The temp swings down the radiator like a slow wave.

Should your temps be hitting 200 before it gets hot? Not entirely sure. My truck has a 180 gray thermo and if I start it and let it idle, it will reach operating temp well before the lower hose is hot. In fact, I think it took 20-25 minutes of idling for the lower hose to get hot hot.

Now driving, thats a different story. I think my lower hose gets hot in a couple miles. More flow equals faster heat transfer I'm sure. My Temps are pretty typical of a d2 with a good cooling system. 187-194ish while driving in ambient Temps under 75 degrees. Over 75 ambient = driving Temps of 190-195, 200-205 on the highway. They reached 215 this weekend but that was towing roughly 2000lb up a steep grade, 6% probably, for several miles.

 

The last time I drove the Rover was for 10 miles, and I could grab the lower hose and hold it with my bare hand.

Having temps between 200-210 is perfectly fine with me. Having temps between 220-225 is not fine with me though. I find it very hard to believe that t-stat's fail that frequently out of the box. Let alone 3 of them failing with zero miles on them.

I'm still leaning towards a blocked radiator as the culprit. If the radiator is blocked it won't matter if the stat opens or not since nothing will circulate.