Well I was driving my car yesterday and I did a 3rd gear pull to the buzzer. Felt good, but when I slowed down again, every warning light on the dash came on. I though, well that's certainly not good. The temp also shot up fairly high. I limped it back home (no overheating thank god) and popped the hood.

The fan/waterpump belt had snapped. It's been squealing a lot lately when the fan was on, so I assume it finally locked up. Is there any way to tell for sure? The water pump pulley still turns as normal, and the fan with it, but as I understand it, the clutch on the fan isn't engaged so there is no resistance. Is this correct?

Is it worth the trouble to convert it to a bigger alternator and electric fan? I've never seen the car get warm before (in 3 years of Texas heat) so I know the clutch fan is more than capable of keeping everything cool, so I'm a bit hesitant to convert to electric. However it seems like I might pick up a bit of power converting by eliminating excess drag on the engine.

Whatever the situation, I thought this was a perfect time to replace the water pump and do a coolant flush, which I've been meaning to do for a long while now. The car has 120k miles on it now, and I think most everything under the hood is as-delivered to the original owner.

 

Why would you need a larger alternator?? That doesn't seem to be apart of your problem. Maybe get dual pulley for better belt contact to possibly eleminate squeeking.

Efan or new clutch fan. I use the clutch fan cause it NEVER lets me down.. until something like this happens.. lol

I'd change thermostat also.

 

Efan would necessitate a bigger alternator. The stock one is a wimpy 65amp, not nearly enough for a big Efan.

 

Or run the belt from the E shaft pulley to the water pump pulley, thats what stopped my belt sliappage 2L220 I beleive is one of the Gates numbers or 1220.

Don't take my word for the number as I am working from memory.

 

I have an Efan and a sound system, the alternator seems stock, but I do have a S4 13B. Efans are great, mines keeps me super cool unless it's 75+ and stuck in traffic, then it's super warm, but no over heating.

 

Well 105+ and stuck in traffic would definitely be no bueno. Anyone know how to check and see if the fan is ok or needs to be replaced?

 

Here's a method I wouldn't recommend, but works for me

 

The fan should spin fairly freely on the clutch when it is in good condition. The stock fan uses a sort of fluid clutch I think. As the fluid warms up due to heat off the rad through the many aluminum fins on the front of the fan, the "clutch" will slowly grab more to lock it more to the drive spindle inside the clutch. This spindle is spun by the water pump pulley. As the clutch grabs more, the fan will spin closer to water pump RPM and deliver more air flow.

More in relation to your problem, I bet your belt was just in bad shape and snapped under the stress of a full RPM pull. And to correct StarFox07, the stock SA/FB alternator is only 55 amps. It is different from the later 2nd gen alternators by having an external cooling fan mounted just behind the pulley. The 2nd gens are internal cooling fans and 70 or 85 amp I think.

EDIT: I REALLY don't recommend you trying to stop the fan like that guy does in the vid. If your fan happens to be locked even a little harder than it should be, it could seriously injure you. I suggest the basic spin test while the engine is NOT running.

 

EDIT: YOU COULD use a broom to make sure it's working if you're worried about your fingers. That's what I did before I made the video.

 

You have a PM.

I'm running a fort taurus efan and even in traffic it keeps the temp just above the first cool mark. That's w/o the high side hooked up, lol. Also run a stock alternator w no issues.

 

So, can I run a Taurus e-fan on my stock alternator or no? I've read somewhere that the constant pull is something like only 9 amps, it's just that when it kicks on it uses quite a lot.

edit: Ok well it looks like I'm going to hunt down an e-fan tomorrow. We wired one up for my brothers '67 Mustang and it works well.

 

Constant pull from an average e-fan is more like 18 amps, surge is close to 40 I would imagine. The surge is mostly taken up by the battery and doesn't affect the alternator, unless the fan is switching on and off too often. The stock alternator will do if the rest of the electrical system is stock or close to it. Be careful though if you have an aftermarket radio and amp setup. Radio alone likely won't hurt much with an e-fan, but with an amp for a subwoofer, you will very easily fry the alternator.

With the e-fan and stock alternator, you may notice a decent voltage drop if you have the high beams on and the blower fan on high while the e-fan on the rad is on. Total draw in that situation may be close to or slightly over 55 amps. For the cost of a 2nd gen alternator, even the 70 amp version will do you well for almost anything.

ray green, I mean no offense to you in saying what I did. You do what you want. I personally just wouldn't even attempt something like that, even with a known good fan. Just looking out for everyones safety. Someone that doesn't know anything about cars or mechanics may try that and loose a finger, not anyone here I am sure though.

 

Well I'll keep the 1st gen Alternator for now. Everything else on the car is stock. If it's a problem I'll get an FC alt.

 

Yup, I did this:
https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ght=taurus+fan

Was easy and Radioshack had the relay and toggle switch. Took about an hour

 

"Just looking out for everyones safety."

Good point, I'll delete it.

Starfox if your fan blade spins freely with the engine off that's good, it shows the fan clutch hasn't locked up, which can happen when they go bad.

There are two ways to know if it is engaging when it should. When you first start the car, it should engage for a few seconds and then let go. This is easy to detect because if you listen when it first starts up you will hear the fan making a sucking sound that then quits after a few seconds.

The second way is if your engine temp starts to climb when you are sitting in traffic or doing a lot of stop and go driving. It won't necessarily overheat but the temp gauge will climb when it shouldn't, then go back up when you do more driving at speed and the ram air takes care of cooling the radiator.

I don't think your fan clutch is bad however. I think you simply broke a belt when you did that pull and that caused the car to overheat because you didn't have your water pump circulating coolant - the fan would be useless in this case even if it was working (which it was not because your belt was broken).

After all, you mention that the belt had been squealing a lot lately, probably because driving around town in the summer heat was causing the clutch fan to engage more frequently. The squealing could have been caused by the belt not being tight enough or, if you had tightened it, it may have just been a belt getting to the end of it's life and loosing it's grip.

Why don't you just put a new belt on there and see what happens?

 

+100

Service lfe of a fan belt, especially one from the 80's, is considerably less than 100,000 miles. Owner's manual says to inspect/adjust very 30 months or 30,000 miles. You're a bit past there. Back in the 80's you'd expect to replace belts & hoses every 2 to 3 years as routine maintenance.

& your high temps are just as Ray said. With the loss of the belt, you lost water flow. Doesn't matter much what the fan's doing if you're not circulating coolant.

I'm still running the original fan clutch; keeps the car cool even stuck in LA traffic midsummer.

 

I'll try the new belt first. Seems like the simplest. I do think I should take this as an opportunity to replace my water pump however.

 

Water pumps almost never fail, unless they start leaking or the bearing goes out. After all, they are just a shaft fixed to a simple impeller sealed inside a chamber.

A leak will be obvious and you should replace the water pump, they aren't that expensive.

Similarly a bad bearing will reveal itself if you give the water pump pulley a spin with the belt off. If it spins freely without any growling noise, it's fine. If not, again that's when to replace the pump.

For a functional test, start with a cold engine and remove the radiator cap. Then start the engine and wait for it to warm up. Notice that the coolant isn't moving in the radiator.

When it reaches operating temperature the thermostat should open and you should see water moving in the radiator. Also check the temperature of the upper radiator hose, if it starts to get hot you know the coolant is circulating and the pump is functioning.

I must say, in 10 years of driving FB's and hundreds of thousands of miles, I've never had to replace a water pump.

On the other hand, I have replaced one or two just for the fun of it! (I like the aftermarket aluminum ones, they are nice and shiny and half the weight)

Good luck with the heat, it's brutal this summer.

 

Well I replaced the water pump, fan/alt belt, cap, and rotor, and then cleaned the plugs. It runs noticeably better now, but there is still belt squeal when the fan comes on. I think part of this is due to the fact that I deleted the smog pump and, as a result, some of the leverage used to turn the fan. I could probably get a double pulley for the alternator, but I think I'm going to wait a month or two and then just swap in an electric fan + S5 alternator.

 

My problem seems to be with the clutch in the fan it's running on full fan, like it's working overtime, is the clutch locked up? everything else seems to be O.K., no overheating but it is running a bit cooler

 

Sounds like the fan clutch is locked up, time to replace it.

You can find used ones inexpensively on ebay:

rx-7 fan clutch | eBay

or on this forum, at the junk yard or new at Rock Auto for a bit more.

 

i'm not sure a single belt AND the clutch fan is a great idea, one or the other is fine though. you need to add a belt or buy a fan....