Old girl was on the struggle bus until I had three things happen all at once. First, I had a cracked head and rebuilt the top end, which revealed a coolant system issue in the form of no thermostat. Then, to make life comfortable on 98* days, I had the entire AC system replaced and upgraded. That's when my mechanic found the system wasn't operating as usual, over-pressuring no matter what he did. I was standing there when he reached his hand into the spinning fan blades and you should have seen my eyes when his hand STOPPED the fan blades.
The fan clutch had gone bad and had been causing issues for years. It caused an overheat condition that tanked the AC system, caused a head gasket failure that led to an engine rebuild where they reinstalled a cracked head, then caused cooling problems when I bought it, then caused the AC system to not work again... all because of a $40 fan clutch. I had him replace it with a heavy duty model to get me by until I could make the upgrade to electric fans from FF Dynamics. It was the original OEM fan assembly from 1997 that had more than likely failed 20k or more miles ago, and the two or three other mechanics before mine weren't smart enough to check it. She's fixed now and running fine without the mechanical fan setup and that AC is ICE COLD.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
Old girl was on the struggle bus until I had three things happen all at once. First, I had a cracked head and rebuilt the top end, which revealed a coolant system issue in the form of no thermostat. Then, to make life comfortable on 98* days, I had the entire AC system replaced and upgraded. That's when my mechanic found the system wasn't operating as usual, over-pressuring no matter what he did. I was standing there when he reached his hand into the spinning fan blades and you should have seen my eyes when his hand STOPPED the fan blades.
The fan clutch had gone bad and had been causing issues for years. It caused an overheat condition that tanked the AC system, caused a head gasket failure that led to an engine rebuild where they reinstalled a cracked head, then caused cooling problems when I bought it, then caused the AC system to not work again... all because of a $40 fan clutch. I had him replace it with a heavy duty model to get me by until I could make the upgrade to electric fans from FF Dynamics. It was the original OEM fan assembly from 1997 that had more than likely failed 20k or more miles ago, and the two or three other mechanics before mine weren't smart enough to check it. She's fixed now and running fine without the mechanical fan setup and that AC is ICE COLD.
- Charles B., Burlington, NC, US