Extra radiator fan for desert CJ?

My CJ is going to be living in Phoenix and the stock fan seems a little small to cool that V6 when the temperature is well over 100. Does anybody have any experience mounting in a secondary electric fan? There seems to be plenty of room in front of the radiator between the grill and radiator. It would be a pretty straight forward job, the hardest part would just be mounting it up. I wanted to know if anybody had tried this before I started planning out how I was going to do it.

 

I have a fan mounted right behind the grill and in front of the radiator. It is just mounted with zip ties but it secure. I have found the best way to keep the engine cool is with a fan shroud. My Jeep has an aftermarket radiator and when I bought it there was no shroud. I had to build one.

 

I am famous for modifying everything so...I went to the junk yard and found a pusher fan on a car, then mounted mine in front of the grill, zip tied on of course. Really it needs to be automatic, so get a fan switch to put in the intake. DC Controls makes a really nice switch for running a Taurus fan which is very popular on V8 swaps.

 

a friend gave me a electric fan off a school bus that i mounted in front of the radiator. im running a aluminum bladed fan on the water pump and when i switch the electric fan i can put my hand by the engine and feel the difference of air flow, im also running a high finned 3 row, ive got a 350 sbc and live in mohave valley, arizona, no problems with it over heating, even when rock crawling in 100 temps.

 

Gotta an electric on the front side of my rad too. Zip ties. Keeps my 283 cool even in the hot summer months here in SoCal. Have it set up so it runs off a fan therm switch or manual switch.

 

How about this as an alternative?
http://www.jeepsterpartsdude.com/new_engine.htm

 

thats how my jeep came, with one of the shrouds with the bottom cut out, wouldn't clear the fan seeing as my 350 sat low, but once i bought a new high finned 3 row, for a cj7, it kept it plenty cool. the electric fan cooling depends on the fan. my jeep came with a, what looked like, nice heavy duty fan but ii didn't notice any difference with it on or off, couldn't feel any difference either. but the fan i have on now i can actually feel the difference in air flow across the engine. i thought the same thing about my old fan maybe doing more harm than good but not with the one i have now. it gets to 120 degrees here and im having no problems, think the radiator did most of the job, the fan might help, it was free so i figured id put it on.

 

Summit carries larger diameter and more number of blades rigid steel fans. Factory V6 HD cooling used a 7 blade steel rigid fan.
It's what I use.

 

That would be the way to go. Adding an electric fan in front can, at times, actually impede airflow, ran into this in my last build a '87 ranger powered by a BUILT 302 with a 100 shot on top of it.

 

air will flow the path of least resistance.
so...an electric fan mounted in front of the radiator will have some effect....much the same as a winch or push bar/brush guard.
It's wise to find some material to "stuff" in and around the grille opening where it meets the radiator; you are forcing air to go thru the radiator, rather than have air deflect and go around some other way.
In a warm climate, you will nedd as much air flow thru the rad as you can get.

 

plain and simple explanation

 

I live in the desert where it gets into the 120s during the summers. I keep an eye on my belts, hoses, coolant levels and overflow tank. I run the stock 4 bladed fan. I got what I thought was a good deal from Radiators.com on a new 4 row radiator $240 with CA tax and delivery from Palm Springs. So far, so good.
Seems to me that clutch fan failure and thermostats failure are the culprits that are usually overlooked until the autopsy. A lean running engine or improper timing can contribute also.

 

Here is my three row Chevy Monza radiator with my custom electric fan mount. It's also a low profile shroud. Works better then I expected it to. My fans come on at 210 degrees and shut off at 195 degrees.

http://groups.msn.com/ScottMilliner/scottsjeeppictures.msnw?albumlist=2

 

Wow, looks liked I opened up a can of worms with this question.

After looking over what everybody said I think this is my plan of action...

1. Better fan (7 bladed unit)
2. Shroud it to force airflow over radiator
3. If that doesn't work upgrade radiator to a 3 or 4 core unit.

 

Can of worms....yeah! ok guys cfm is the key (no arguement to previous posts intended) My 318 v8 ran fine w/5 bladed stock belt driven fan blade with T stat clutch,I tried ALOT of electric fans even ones rated for racing applications and noticed althou the engine temp. was fine the key difference was the engine itself on the outside was alot hotter than before. To explain..On a ten mile round trip with stock belt fan the valve covers were cool enough to lay your hand on and keep it there and ou could feel the sheer volume of air being moved, with electric fans rated to cool my engine I could hear the fans and feel a slight breeze from them with the hood up but the valve covers were too hot to touch:?
The temp guage showed the thermostat was cycling open and close to indicate that I had enough airflow for the radiator.
I didn't like the fact that even thou the internal tamperature was fine the outside was alot hotter than before. Will this harm the engine???I don't know.. but in my opinion if an engine was originally designed with an electric fan setup then it was designed for internal cooling with minimal outside airflow, I'm sure none will argue that belt driven fans move LOTS more air (volume) If the engine was designed with a belt driven fan then that large volume of outside air movement was considered in the design.
Regarding elect. fan,s
Guage temp. is guage temp. I agree that if the guage says it's ok then....it's ok! BUT! what about metal fatigue? I measured a coolant temp. of 190 F on an 85 F day and a surface temp. of 250F with electric fans... With belt driven fan 190 F coolant 200 F surface. Hmm?
Surface temp was averaged between Various points on the engine. Valve cover's, top of intake manifold, side of heads and both sides of block. The highest temp. was the top of the intake manifold which recieved the least air from the electric fan so I'm gaining more power by not turning a belt driven fan but loosing power by having a hotter air temp. in the intake manifold and possibly overheating the rocker arm's and such that don't see any coolant flow....MY opinion is having electric fans for additional cooling is good but unless the whole thing was designed for electric fans I'd be wary. and very cautious.

 

I was never considering taking out the stock fan, just adding more to it. As it is, I'll see if I can just replace the 4 blade fan with a higher cfm one. If that doesn't work I'll try shrouding it to force more air over the radiator and finally I'll look at a better radiator.

I understand though what you're saying, the outside of an engine block can work as a huge heatsink, enough that some cars were designed to use that to dump all their heat without even a radiator. However, old VWs never really interested me! So in our CJs some of that air flowing through the engine compartment keeps parts cool that aren't on the coolant loop.

 

I live in NW Western Australia here it is hot most of the time, I mucked around with twin elec thermos etc what I have now works great
1 stainless flex engine fan, no clutch, and slightly reduced water pump pulley dia to spin the fan faster at lower rpm, a fan shroud, ya need a fan shroud, use the minimum amount of glycol based coolant required to protect engine parts, use redline water wetter, other things engine oil cooler with 2 small 12v elec fans, and a thermostat that opens at 75 deg c

 

Taurus fan will kick most any mechanical fans butt especially at idle. They draw 60 amps at start up and about 20-30 amps continuous. Same fan used in Crown Vic police cars. They are often two speed too. That is what I am using to cool a big block.

 

Here are the specs on the Permacool fan I used w/my V6. I mounted it as a pusher.

19114
14" High Performance Electric Fan
Mounting Area Req'd: 14" x 14" x 3-3/4"
Est. CFM:2950
Motor RPM:1800
AMP Draw:9.5
Fuse Size: 30 amp

http://www.perma-cool.com/Catalog/Cat_page16.html

IIRC it was about $100.00 at Summit.