lemonade

first, all my cooling devices are messed up. i got my car started yesterday, and it soon started to go over normal operating temp. i got out and looked in the engine, and the fan is barely spinning. and i could stop it with my hand. and one of the hoses leading into the radiaor is spraying coolant everywhere. i turned the car off. tightend the hose, turned it on agian, and it stopped leaking. and the fan magically spun agian. im wondering if there is anythinginternal that could have been damaged. because there is a possiblity that the car over heated without me knowing it. when the car runs it runs fine except for its tempurature climbing above normal operating tempurature.

lemonade

i also think there could be a crack in the radiator. it was hissing from the top of the radiator (not the cap). but i dont have this problem anymore. i could be wrong though, i didnt want to stick my face in there and find out.

cdrad51

can stop fan with hand = fan clutch is gone
radiator leaking from top = time for a new one

lemonade

where is the fan clutch, becuase the belts are spinning at speed and so it the shaft that holds the fan

cdrad51

http://www.wankel.net/~krwright/file...(3)cooling.pdf

page 4

Ludicrous

I didn't have the fan clutch problem, but I did have leaks & a pin hole in the radiator. Thought of pressure testing your system to make sure you got all the leaks, and to see if the radiator has a hole?

(mine had some small leaks from hose clamps not being tight enough, etc., that I wouldn't have found otherwise)

LongDuck

As others have stated here, replacing your fan clutch (mounted to the front of the fan) will likely fix your problem with the higher than normal engine temperature.

The fan clutch is thermally activated based on the temperature of the air passing over the vanes on the front of the fan assembly. Although the fan is attached to the drive pulley on the waterpump, it is free to spin at lower than drive pully speed, i.e., it can spin slower or as fast as the drive pulley to turn just fast enough to draw air through the radiator and keep the coolant at a constant temperature.

Inside of the fan assembly there is a viscous clutch that uses a bimetal strip to control the 'traction' that the fan receives from the waterpump pulley. As the air comes in the front of the airdam, it is drawn through the radiator where it picks up heat from the engine. As this air passes over the front of the fan assembly, if the air is very hot, the clutch engages more, speeding up the rotational speed of the fan. When the fan speeds up, it draws more air through the radiator, cooling the water/antifreeze further, dropping the temp of the air coming through, which then passes across the front of the fan. As the radiator cools off, cooler air passes across the fan clutch, which disengages the clutch, allowing the fan to spin more slowly.

In effect, this is a constant adjustment that the fan clutch makes to ensure that the air coming through the radiator is a specific temperature. When the clutch in the fan goes out - engine temperature raises unchecked.

You'll need to get this fixed in short order to prevent other problems that occur when a rotary engine gets hot. Pick-A-Part fan clutch (or complete fan assembly), or an electric fan (with thermostat control) will fix this problem for you. HTH,

cdrad51

While in the middle of these posts, took my car for a ride and when I was almost back home the temp starting going up, started smelling like coolant, checked the car and sure enough, the hose from the engine to the heater, the most common one to break, had broken. car almost overheated. ain't life a bitch...

lemonade

yeah, im getting my radiator flushed and/or patched, and im buying an electric fan with an adjustable thermostat.

thanks for all the information and help.....next step, how hard is it to install an electric fan?