RagTop
Old Grumpy
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.
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