Have a 85 GS. 57K miles. Stock fan is always on. I flushed cooling system but no help. Any ideas? Is there a sensor that controls when the fan kicks in that needs replacing? This is really annoying.

 

Maybe the fan clutch - our fans are mechanically driven.

 

Yep, fan clutch likes to go bad. With your engine OFF, see if you can spin the fan by hand, if you can't the clutch is bad and you need to take a trip to your local junk yard.

 

If your fan is electric, then it's Aftermarket.

Stock fan is a mechanical clutch fan.

Clutch fans have a little finned lookin dude on them and are bolted to the water pump pulley. It'll always turn a little bit...

The clutch is filled with a goo that hardens when it gets hot. When it's cold, the fan is just kinda freewheeling there. As it heats up and the goo gets harder, the fan will spin faster.

What can happen is that the clutch can lock entirely up and the fan will spin at full speed all the time, or the clutch can fail and the fan will free wheel all the time...

Test it...

With the car cold, the fan should spin fairly easily... Little resistance, but should turn by hand... If it's stuck, then the clutch is locked up. Too easy and it may be freewheeling...

Warm the car up for a while... Go driving or something...

Shut it down and test it... The fan should be considerably harder to turn now... Too easy, and it's defenately freewheeling.

 

When the fan used to work correctly, when I started the car. after a couple seconds I would hear the fan kick on for just a few seconds, then shut off. OF course it kicked back on when needed. Now when i start the car the fan kicks on after a couple seconds, but then stays on all the time. I've tried spinnig the fan by hand, and it will spin but gives a little resistance, so that seems OK. I hadn't driven the car much the past couple years, but it's become my daily work car so I was thinking maybe the time spent sitting in my garage had something to do with it. I appreiciate your guys' comments on this.

 

could be because it's warmer now?

Seriously, in winter it takes my car 10-15 minutes to reach operating temperature. Right now it takes about 3-6 minutes.

 

Have you checked out the Flex-a-lite replacement fan clutches?

 

They make a direct replacement?

Dan

 

Is it electrical or mechanical? What hes describing sounds like an electric fan to me. The stock fan is clutch driven and attached to the water pump pully and driven by the water pump belt.

~T.J.

 

I think I'll look for an electrical fan at the junkyard. Ihear a 91-96 Ford Escort fan is a good match.