Hello everyone,
I removed my non-working fan/clutch and installed an electric fan. I then put the pulley back on and used some shallow bolts to secure it. Now the pulley doesn't rotate and makes a loud squealing noise. What have I overlooked?
Thanks!

 

Maybe the bolts aren't shallow enough?
Loosen the belts again and try spinning the water pump pulley by hand, it should turn very easily.

 

Thanks. I'm going back out to work on it again. The bolts only have about 1/4 inch of threads going in. I wanted to take pulley off to see more clearly. But I couldn't remove the pulley completely. You have to take off crank pulley in order to have the clearance to remove this pulley.

 

So I put spacers on bolts, which only allowed the bolts to have about 3-4 threads at the end. Now it works as it should. I'm stumped as to why the longer bolts caused the pulley to seize up, but the shorter bolts allows it to spin like normal. I love it when I find a solution, but hate it when I don't understand what caused the problem.

 

That’s what happened to me. I had the same issue. Found out that my bolts were too long. Had to replace the bolts with some shorter ones.

 

The longer bolts were hitting part of the pump housing.

 

Thanks man. It certainly is nice to know that I'm not the only one that had this problem.

 

Thank man. At least now I know what the problem was.

 

You were right! Thanks!

 

What electric fan did you end up using, and how did you tackle the electrical component of it? Ive replaced my fan clutch 2 times and they all are seized/stuck in the cold position, always rotating with engine rpm no matter the temp. At this point an electric fan sounds great. Im just not sure what CFM requirements/size are needed, or how to wire it up correctly. Any help would be awesome! I have an aluminum radiator sitting in the garage waiting for install.

 

I'm not at home right now to look at it, but I'm pretty sure the one I installed was the Derale 168-23 from Summit Racing. It's more than enough. It actually just about fits perfect behind the stock radiator. It has two speeds. I only wired it to low speed. If you wire it according to the directions it won't work. Apparently, there's a typo in the directions. If it wasn't for some help, I probably would still not have it working, lol! If you decide to get this model, PM me and I'll help you with it.

 

Any fan that can supply about 2000+ CFM can work. Also make sure theres a decent shroud in place or it won't cool as well. That Derale is rated at around 2400 CFM so it should work fine. I have a dual fan setup from a MK1 MR2 which fit perfectly on my SA radiator.

 

Here is the system I used, from Summit. It’s a ‘puller’ fan which moves the air the other direction to a traditional. This allowed me to mount it backwards (motor towards front of car), because I wanted the fan to fit perfectly within the existing shroud. The fan has four bolt slots, which I used to bolt the fan in to the shroud. The controller is bolted low down on the driver side of the engine bay, below the battery, using an existing bolt hole. It’s the small black box with brightly colored wires going to it in photo.

When regular driving the car runs 1/3 up the temp gauge and fan does not come on. In stop go traffic the fan will cycle on and off, and I adjusted the controller to keep temp at 1/3 up gauge. Fan also comes on once when engine is turned off.

One downside. After a very hot day in stop/go traffic the blades started making a ticking noise when running, they were contacting the fan’s grill. I ignored this then one day the fan stopped spinning completely and discovered shaft of fan had broken. Theory is the fan jammed completely and the pin that holds the fan to the shaft snapped. I replaced the fan and before installing used a heat gun to heat the root of each blade and bent the tip slightly away from the grill, maybe a fingers breadth of space. All good since, but would defn bend the blades out slightly before install if I were to do this again.

IMPORTANT. Even at 3000cfpm and a good shroud the fan cannot cope with being in the dyno at the smog place that California requires. This is due to engine being under load and fan having no speed induced air flow. I overheated, and had to reinstall the OEM clutch fan and try again. Lucky escape, the tech overheated the car to the point of coolant jetting out of the expansion tank. So far seems to have done no damage.

 

Oops… make that a PUSHER fan. Here are part numbers in pic.

 

I had the same problem when I deleted the fan clutch and went to electrical fans…..this was my set up after on my 1982 GSL….. 3 row aluminum radiator, Derale dual fans and a dual electric fan controller…..

 

Do you have any pictures of your set up? I think I’m going to go with the Derale 16823.

https://a.co/d/iJJ4oqe

Do I need any special wiring with the kit? Will it always be on, or is there a way to program the fan to hit both speeds automatically with a temp sensor of some kind? I also would probably want to have this as a relay to take strain off the alt.

 

There are some recent threads on here with diagrams, but the long and short is that you control the fan with a temperature sensor/switch so it comes on when needed. Here's a thread with some options

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generati...c-fan-1008544/

And here's just one regarding temp sensor location

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generati...ic-fan-725305/

I think it would be up to you to decide whether you want it to run only when ignition is also on or to continue running after shutdown if the temp is still high. Note that after shutdown, the water pump is not pumping, coolant is no longer circulating so you would only be cooling the rad and engine bay, not the engine *directly*.

Just power the fan with a sufficiently fused connection directly to the battery. The point of a relay in the wiring isn't to take any strain off of the alternator which will always be contributing. It's to handle the higher amperage to the fan and gets its coil energized by the temperature switch. Maybe the temp switch you buy will include a relay?

@LongDuck just posted a great explanation of the roles of the alt and battery in your charging/electrical supply system.

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generati.../#post12621980

 

The longer bolts hits the wheel on the back side of the pump that moves the water. This prevents it from turning.

 

How do you remove the extension flange that would bolt to the fan clutch? I can spin mine about a quarter turn either direction then it’s stuck. Also, whether you can or can’t remove it, do you need to put the bolts back in? (Sounds like the need to be shorter bolts from above^^^)


How do you remove this flange?

 

Loosened the alt belts a bit and twisted it off.

how small of bolts do you need to replace the original ones with?

 

with all 4 bolts out and holding the pulley, you can twist the aluminum piece? the w/p shaft sticks out into the back of that spacer. corrosion usually makes it a little difficult to remove. pull on it as you twist and it will eventually come off. if you can get it where there's a gap, spray some WD between there. bolts can be found at any hardware store. just take one and match it up. might not be look exactly the same but length and thread pitch can be found.

 

Once you get the aluminum spacer off, take one of the factory long bolts and see how much sticks out the back. This will give you the bolt length. Bolt length is measured from the back side of the head to end. If you want to add washers, be sure to include that thickness in the bolt length. I like to use a flat and lock washer on stuff like this.