Hydraulic cooling fan?

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
Totally lame setup. I blame the fact that the car is a Jaguar for that as well as all the other problems that car has that no other Ford had problems with. Have you ever had to price a front lower ball joint on one of these, totally insane.

Woah! I looked it up out of curiosity, and the ones to 3/2002 are pretty cheap, then for cars after that the price more than triples! $150 for one ball joint!

 

[musicmanbass]

Yup, and $450+ control arms! Oh, and $800 fuel pumps.

Thankfully the only thing I've had to replace so far is valve cover gaskets and ignition coils.

 

[bdcardinal]

BTW from Ford that ball joint is not servicable by itself. You have to buy an entire upright (knuckle) assembly. Also we have seen the updated rear wheel bearings require a complete rear upright and hub assembly.

BTW that was for the Lincoln LS / Ford T-Bird / JAg S-Type. The 03+ Panther front suspension parts got a lot more expensive with the switch to "struts" and rack and pinion steering.

 

[river_rat]

Why not a hydraulic fan and an extra pump?
We have expensive sonar gizmos that blink a light on your side mirrors when someone is in your blind spot.

(My $6 wide angle stick-on mirrors do it for me.)

 

[Colt45ws]

They are not really struts because the suspension has an upper control arm; they are "coilover" shocks.
Pet peeve of mine.
I know mine has the aluminium lower control arms you are not supposed to change the ball joint itself on due to possible microfracturing when forcing the old one out and the new one back in. Instead you have to replace the whole Celestia [censored] LCA. Later they went steel LCAs and I assume you can just change the ball joint itself on those.

 

[artificialist]

Originally Posted By: Colt45ws
They are not really struts because the suspension has an upper control arm; they are "coilover" shocks.
Pet peeve of mine.
I know mine has the aluminium lower control arms you are not supposed to change the ball joint itself on due to possible microfracturing when forcing the old one out and the new one back in. Instead you have to replace the whole Celestia [censored] LCA. Later they went steel LCAs and I assume you can just change the ball joint itself on those.

In some cases you can replace the ball joint on the steel control arm, if a replacement part company decides to make those parts.

However, bushings sometimes can't be replaced.

Another common problem is that the ball joint looks replaceable, but that car's dealership only sells the entire arm.

 

[Cujet]

Well, it could have been an exhaust driven turbine, operating the fan.

 

[deeter16317]

You will most likely find the fan itself is designed to move far more air than a comparable electric...plus less draw on the electronic gadget system.

 

[CBR.worm]

I think they were supposed to be lower profile than belt driven fans and not electric. When Lexus did it, it was supposedly for packaging reasons

 

[onion]

Hydraulic fans are common on large tour busses, motorcoaches, and some (mostly newer) heavy equipment. For busses and motorcoaches, it's all about packaging and providing a level of air flow that you can't reasonably get from an electric fan. It's much the same for heavy equipment, with the additional advantage of being able to reverse air flow direction to blow dirt out of the radiator.

 

[Hokiefyd]

The fan setup I liked best was on the Caterpillar 3026B engine in my dad's Ford F-650. It was an extremely large belt-driven fan, but it was plastic like a typical electric fan, and clutched like an A/C compressor. So when running down the road in cooler weather, you'd have no load from the fan at all (like an e-fan), but when cooling was required, you had the superior cooling of a large mechanical fan. You had the best of both worlds with that. Sitting at idle, that fan would clutch on and off, like an A/C compressor (and probably WITH the A/C compressor at idle like that).

 

[440Magnum]

It does, on the surface, seem like unnecessary complexity. But then hydraulic fans have been used on earthmoving equipment for ages (the system can be sealed so you don't get dust and dirt into electric motor commutators, and it doesn't add a heavier load to the electrical system, and most of that equipment already has a massive hydraulic system anyway). So its not like its WAY far out in left field, just different. Personally I think it IS unnecessary complexity for a car, but there is some engineering precedent out there.

Wanna talk really unnecessary complexity? How about the water-cooled alternator found on some years of Northstar engines? Or the starter being under the intake manifold?

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
The fan setup I liked best was on the Caterpillar 3026B engine in my dad's Ford F-650. It was an extremely large belt-driven fan, but it was plastic like a typical electric fan, and clutched like an A/C compressor. So when running down the road in cooler weather, you'd have no load from the fan at all (like an e-fan), but when cooling was required, you had the superior cooling of a large mechanical fan. You had the best of both worlds with that. Sitting at idle, that fan would clutch on and off, like an A/C compressor (and probably WITH the A/C compressor at idle like that).


Most big rigs use clutched fans, and at least for the early Cummins Dodge pickups, you could buy an off-the-shelf Horton fan clutch and bolt it right on the truck (I don't know about the latest 24-valve ISBs). The downside is that when they DO clutch in, they're as loud as God's own vacuum cleaner and you can actually feel the extra drag. Sometimes you can use them with a manual switch as a little bit of extra engine braking.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Wanna talk really unnecessary complexity? How about the water-cooled alternator found on some years of Northstar engines? Or the starter being under the intake manifold?


The water-cooled alternator really was a pig-in-a-poke, but the starter being under the intake manifold was good in my opinion. You almost never heard of starter failures in those engines to begin with...they're away from the salt and water and corrosive environment; they stay dry and protected. And if you do have to change a starter, it's a 30 minute job from the top of the car, rather than a 20 minute job laying on your back with caked grime falling down on you.

Replacing a Northstar starter, if you ever have to do one to begin with, sounds like a tricky endeavor, but it's really very easy to do. Just like the water pump driven off one of the front bank cams. It's one of the easiest water pumps I've ever changed.

The Northstar engine looks daunting. But it's actually very maintenance-friendly.

 

[rslifkin]

^ I've been wanting one of those electro-mag clutches for the Jeep for a while, as the factory e-fan is nice, but the clutch fan versions definitely do better when towing in hot weather (but factory viscous clutches are a power/mpg draining pita). It's too bad they don't make small ones.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Anyone wanting more fan just needs to visit the aftermarket. I've got a set of Flex-a-lite fans with a variable speed controller that can flow 6000 cfm! It will just about suck you in.

Uses a ton of amps, though. But it gives up nothing to an engine driven fan.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Anyone wanting more fan just needs to visit the aftermarket.


Or find a Lincoln Mk VIII in a junkyard or on Ebay. The Mk VIII fan moves more air than *any* aftermarket fan- its absolutely staggering. Also requires a big alternator since its a steady 25-30 amp draw on its highest speed. I'm firmly convinced that there's *nothing* short of a big rig that a Mk VIII fan and a DCC fan controller module couldn't cool.

 

[SteveSRT8]

As long as you qualify that with the word "single".

The fan set (two) that I'm running on a 502 equipped show truck is about a 50 or 60 amp draw, and may suck the brushes right out of that Lincoln fan!

 

[440Magnum]

True. A single MkVIII fan moves around 5500 CFM.

I didn't have room for the thickness of a MkVIII fan in my '66 Polara, so its got the Taurus SHO fan which is good for about 4000 RPM. Works fantastic keeping a 440 cool, in stop-n-go traffic, with the AC blowing even in >100F ambient temps. Unfortunately I had *lots* of days to prove that this past summer ;-/

 

[SteveSRT8]

I have had issues before with single fans not pulling enough air over all the radiator, and fabricating shrouds is almost hopeless.

Then I discovered Flexalite. They make some killa fans, and they have one for almost anything. Relatively cheap, and ridiculously durable.

The only issue is wiring. They have to have a dedicated circuit, and in some cases a bigger alternator is required. But I really love the variable speeds, that was what cinched it down right. Plus it covers that huge radiator over 85% with the shroud it came with. Makes the AC colder, too.

If you got the amps I can't see where any other kind of fan is going to beat our modern electrics.