check your fans.....

[justaZcarguy]

And I'm not talking the glee club....

Yesterday I was out driving on a killer sunny day here in Forest Grove, after travelling for a couple of hours and cornering a bit on the country roads I noticed water hitting the windshield and my temp shooting up fast...

Not good.

Car got hotter and hotter as I desperatley searched for a hose. Finally I reached a friends house just as the temp amost topped out....

Carefully topping it off with water to limp her home I noticed a circle in the radiator like the radiator had been laid up against the fan, funny the damn thing seems tight, what the hell...And, water shooting out of the seam where the fan had struck the top / side...

Limped it home and upon closer inspection I found one of the blades had been rubbed and I noticed at the base there was a crack and if you flexed the blade it would hit the radiator.

Crap.

One wasted radiator and fan over a crack.

The morale of the story is check the blades, at the base by the circle. Don't let happen to you what happend to me.

By the way, has this happend to anyone else?

Enjoy....

Brian

[kmack]

Kyle (one of the moderators on this site and a member of the email list) had a similar problem when he put his L28 back into his 240. Apperently there is a little bit of a clearance issue when using the L24 fan on a L28 block with a bigger radiator (3-4 row).

When it's all sitting still everything is fine, but when running at high rpm's, the fan will flex enough and hit the radiator.

I'm not sure what Kyle has done to fix this problem but he was working on it about a month ago.

ps-there were no cracks in his fan either.

[Bambikiller240]

Brian:

Is your fan a metal one or the plastic variety. The reason I ask is that I've never heard of a plastic one failing before this sad story.

[Daniel]

While cleaning under the hood on my300Z I noticed little spider web looking lines on the plastic fan.Close inspection showed that there were little hairline cracks all over it.A nissan tech said it was common from years of heat. I have a metal fan on my 240.They say the plastic,being lighter ,causes less wear on the water pump bearing.At least it drips before it fails.I like metal.

[2ManyZs]

Never saw one lose a blade, but I have seen them break where they attach to the mounting plate to the fan clutch though.... either way the result isn't a good one.:disappoin

[justaZcarguy]

It's the plastic type, and the engine in this car is stock. The distance with the car not running is almost an inch and a half.

Also the only fan that has rubbed is the one with the break.

At this point I'm thinking about going with electric.

Thanks for the replies....

Brian

[Daniel]

Lets see your plastic fan gave 30+/- years of no trouble.So be cause you never checked it and it failed,you now want to add wire ,fuses,thermostat relays,and a motor that can fail in an instant.I don't see the benefit.

[phi22b@ck]

I am going electric also. Has to be good for at least a fractional HP gain... Right?

[justaZcarguy]

Now I am pissed.

Forget all of the previous posts.

I was just out taking the car on a short test run, I swerved to miss someone and before I knew what happened, I was into a tree.

Pretty much wasted the car.

I can't believe this.

:disappoin

B

[2ManyZs]

Egad, that is not good. But as long as you are OK, well, there is always another car to tinker with.

Look on the bright side, you live on the "left coast" where Z's are plentiful.....and usually a lot cheaper than here on the east coast.

Can it be fixed?

[justaZcarguy]

I don't know.

I doubt it, when the tire took the impact, there was a bit of rot under the battery tray & frame rail. Now I see that there was undercoating covering up areas that were also affected. With the weak areas the TC rod shoved the frame back, wrinkling the unibody area behind the tire area.

There's a painful pic below.

I'm thinking that it may be donor car time and start over. You will most likely see a post for a request on leads for a donor car in the pacific northwest...

I hate to say that. But I know how insurance companies work and they will just total it and I will need to but it back from them.

Fu%!.

Brian.

[beandip]

I may be able to be of help , I know of one '73 that would be a great donor car. Not being driven but alot of the work has been done , all new weather striping on glas and doors and hatch , body is stright and rust problems repaired . It 's just sitting next to a barn and has been for some time. and there is another z that I havent seen but am getting info on seems the owner has it stored at a relitives house and now is in jail so the relitive wants the car gone. Something like that , any way I am finding out.. " If it wasn't for BAD LUCK you wouldent have any at all !!" hang in there carguy :ermm: