My biggest fan! Long and unusually boring.

I have been struggling with fan shrouds and spacers and fans ever since I moved to the sunny Sacramento area. My Bay Area car didn't like the ambient temps of 108*. I bought one of those five bladed fans from a local Mustang shop and swapped it out for my stock four bladed model that came on the car. A few months ago I found a big chunk taken out of my shroud and blamed it on my local mechanic. He paid for a replacement shroud. That was a Ford tooling shroud and it was warped top and bottom. My fan ate it in about a week. I replaced the shroud with another Ford tooling model and the fan feasted on it in two days. I installed a shorter spacer (1 1/2") and replaced the shroud with yet another Ford tooling part. Drove the car for several weeks without incident and took it up to Reno and back for Hot August Nights. The temp was stable and everything seemed just hunky dory. I just had the AAA flat bed drop me and the Mustang off in front of my house. I was on my way to a cruise in Sacratomato and was trying to get ahead of traffic in the two right lanes of Sunset Blvd. just where it meets Hwy. 50 and I gassed it in 1st gear. About 5,500 rpm and POW, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK. The car begins to vibrate and I pull into a shopping center parking lot. I can't tell you the dark imaginings that were running through my head. Turns out the evil fan has attacked my new shroud. There are flaps of ripped shroud all over the place. Fortunately I always carry a cheap Husky socket set. I pull the shroud and it is so torn up I actually get it past the fan without removing it. I say a little prayer and fire the engine up and the hood begins shaking from side to side and the engine is vibrating something fierce. I try to limp it home, but that's about 25 miles and I finally give up and call AAA. I take another look and realize that one of the five blades (I think it was the sneaky looking one that is at an odd angle) had left the car. Hence my horrible vibration. I stuck the old four blade back on the car as soon as I got home and everything is fine. I'm digging around for the Flex-A-Lite that I had on the car before the rebuild many years ago. If I can't find it I'm hijacking the one off my kids SportsRoof that sits unloved on the other side of my garage.

Are your motormounts OK ?
Its very strange you damage your fanshroud every time . I think your engine moves too much when accelerating.
my 2 eurocent.

B67FSTB said:

Are your motormounts OK ?
Its very strange you damage your fanshroud every time . I think your engine moves too much when accelerating.
my 2 eurocent.

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I was thinking the same thing when he said that it happened when he got on it a bit.

I'm with Bruno and Craig on this one.

B67FSTB said:

Are your motormounts OK ?
Its very strange you damage your fanshroud every time . I think your engine moves too much when accelerating.
my 2 eurocent.

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Me three. That was my first thought.

Do they have Eurocents? Euronickels? Eurodimes? I have no idea...

They have farthings.

I agree that with the mounts possibly being shot.

I have to agree about the motor mounts. I'm going to check them on Monday with a buddy of mine. The only car I ever had a problem with the motor mounts was a '64 Falcon Sprint. The left mount tore and the floor shifter would flop over to the right whenever I accelerated. The selector on the floor of my Mustang is rock steady, but it may not be directly attached to the transmission like my top loader 4 speed was. Maybe the engine would lift if I just manually mashed the throttle linkage with it in park. I'll look at that tomorrow. I did just re-install my old Flex-A-Lite six bladed flex fan this afternoon. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I took the Mustang to a little local show this morning and, while I was cleaning the car, I noticed a little dimple in my hood in the right front area. I opened the hood and there was a gash in the hood inner structure. It saved the hood from having the blade go right through it, but the tip of the blade must have made contact with the inside of the outer hood. Ugly looking hole on the inside of the hood though.

Just checked the motor mount. I manually rev'ed it up while watching the engine and there was absolutely no movement of the engine or the fan. I would think, if my left mount were separated, the engine would lift up on the driver's side when the throttle was liberally applied and, from the inside of the car I would see the shifter torque over to the right. That isn't happening, so I guess it wasn't my motor mount that was eating my shrouds and damaging my fan. I have a shift kit in my C4, so I can see the shifter jolting slightly forward when the tranny shifts, but that's the only observed movement and it's always done that.
On the good news side, the dimple on my hood has somehow shrunk to just a little ripple. I don't know if it is just the expansion of the sheet metal in the hot sun or what, but it has significantly reduced to the degree that I have to go searching for it. The picture below is what it looked like when I first noticed it. I'm still going to contact a paintless dent removal guy tomorrow. Have any of you tried this method for minor dents (or dimples)?

By just rev your engine , it won't happen.You need load/torque.
Put it in drive while the handbrake is engaged and put some load on the engine .

Paintless dent removal will likely work out well. Not going to fix the ugly on the underside though.

auto shifter is also bolted to the floor and not tied to trans like the 4 speed. I agree with Bruno too, in drive with a load check then...

Ken:

Generally, a skilled paintless dent removal guy should be able to make that inside out pimple go away without a trace. Years ago I had a local guy remove a similar pimple from the front hood of a Porsche and he used a small diameter plastic blunt tip pin punch type tool (looked like white Corian) with a small hammer and slowly worked the pimple out without leaving so much as a scuff mark on the paint.

JeffTepper said:

Ken:

Generally, a skilled paintless dent removal guy should be able to make that inside out pimple go away without a trace. Years ago I had a local guy remove a similar pimple from the front hood of a Porsche and he used a small diameter plastic blunt tip pin punch type tool (looked like white Corian) with a small hammer and slowly worked the pimple out without leaving so much as a scuff mark on the paint.

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Generally, that's true, so long as one can get behind the affected metal with a brace. However, if that dimple is above where a cut in the support structure was generated, it may be difficult to get a tool in there to remove the dent.

I had a similar dimple in my 06 Mustang, and the dent remover wanted to cut a big hole in my hood's support structure to access it. I told him no, that I'll live with the dimple.

Randy:

Most common paintless dent removal involves removing door dings that require access to the inside of the body panel behind the ding to allow the ding to be worked back out until the surface is once again flush.
As you point out, occasionally bracing or other structural impediments to access the inner sheet metal panel may prevent the straightening tools access to the back side of the damaged panel. I have seen where a small hole is drilled into the door jamb adjacent to the space where the dent is located so that tool access is possible. In those instances, the hole is then plugged with an appropriately sized rubber plug.
Unless I misunderstood, the inside out pimple (dimple) on Ken's hood is not a door ding type of damage, rather it is sticking up from the regular surface of the hood and removing it can be addressed from the outside surface. Essentially many , many small taps with that pin punch tool massages the pimple until it is once again flush with the hood surface. At least, that's how the Paintless Dent guy did it on my car those many years ago.

The flying fan blade cut a big hole through the structure to hit the upper metal. There will be access to get behind it as necessary judging by the pics.

I guess I'm not really worried as much about the hole in the inner hood as I am about the dimple on the outside. Besides, I think I now have a greater problem. When I went out into the garage to fire up the Mustang to administer the suggested power in drive with E-brake on test, the car started briefly and the made a strange clattering sound reminiscent of a star gear on a Bendix scattering. It now will not even turn over. Hit the ignition and the solenoid clicks and the courtesy lights die down, but that's it. About six months ago I had the same thing happen and it was a scattered star gear, a part of which got pinned between the flex plate and the bell housing. At the time the mechanic who "fixed" it mentioned that the teeth on the flex plate looked a little suspicious. I've had this car since 1998 and it has never given me a lick of real trouble. Maybe it's just time. I've got the same Mustang mechanic who sorted out my carb coming over on Thursday with a trailer to haul my baby about 40 miles to his shop. I'm thinking if the flex plate needs replacement then my C4 will have to be, at the least, pulled back from the engine. Hmmm.....maybe I should consider a higher stall converter at that time.

Midlife said:

Generally, that's true, so long as one can get behind the affected metal with a brace. However, if that dimple is above where a cut in the support structure was generated, it may be difficult to get a tool in there to remove the dent.

I had a similar dimple in my 06 Mustang, and the dent remover wanted to cut a big hole in my hood's support structure to access it. I told him no, that I'll live with the dimple.

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If it comes down to hacking a bigger hole on the inside of my hood, I'm afraid my answer will also be no. The structure is there for a reason other than stopping loose fan blades. I did just have a great idea though. Referring back to the clone thread, I could always commandeer the Mach 1 hood sitting on the side of my garage that came off my son's SportsRoof. I could remount the hood scoop, wire up the turn signals, install the pins and lanyards and have the hood painted with a dull black pattern. I could then show the car as the rare Mach 1 convertible. A one of one car! Well.....maybe not.

Yours won't be the only Mach 1 convertible, believe me...

Back to your dimple. I would try to use the right body tool hammer and see if you can lower the dimple to where it is barely noticeable. The metal has stretched, so even if you make it level, there's thinner metal there now and it has spread out a bit as well. Just go slow, easy, and mild taps. It'll be amazing what a number of these small blows will do to metal.

Hey! While I was all worried about the dimple in my hood, the car coughed up a chunk of the sheet metal disc behind the star gear and the flex plate ate it all up! I sent it to the guy who just sorted out my carb and he replaced the starter again (my local non-Mustang guy had just replaced this one about six months back), fished out all the pieces that were floating around in the bell housing or stuck in the flex plate teeth and replaced the engine mounts. I turns out that they had only lasted 49 years. Cheap Ford products, huh? That explains my car's hunger for radiator shrouds as well. Maybe I'll install shroud #5 now and see if it lasts. I sand blasted the local guys for the first shroud and they paid for #2, but I'll bet hitting that deer with my left front fender may have had something to do with this, causing the old, crunchy engine mount to separate. Besides, these local guys had the car in hand on several occasions after it had begun eating shrouds and they never checked the engine mounts. My conscience is clear.

RagTop said:

Hey! While I was all worried about the dimple in my hood, the car coughed up a chunk of the sheet metal disc behind the star gear and the flex plate ate it all up! I sent it to the guy who just sorted out my carb and he replaced the starter again (my local non-Mustang guy had just replaced this one about six months back), fished out all the pieces that were floating around in the bell housing or stuck in the flex plate teeth and replaced the engine mounts. I turns out that they had only lasted 49 years. Cheap Ford products, huh? That explains my car's hunger for radiator shrouds as well. Maybe I'll install shroud #5 now and see if it lasts. I sand blasted the local guys for the first shroud and they paid for #2, but I'll bet hitting that deer with my left front fender may have had something to do with this, causing the old, crunchy engine mount to separate. Besides, these local guys had the car in hand on several occasions after it had begun eating shrouds and they never checked the engine mounts. My conscience is clear.

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Have you been hanging out with Kelly?