hello all I have an 88 gxl and I noticed my car's temp was a bit higher than usual, so I checked the coolant level and that checked out ok. rad caps are brand new and so when I checked the fan itself I noticed that I can stop it while the car is idiling and hold it still. My question is should this be possible ( me being able to hold the fan while the car is running) I assume that the fan is running off of some clutch mechanism, and maybe its worn out. Any help on repairing or replacing this would be greatly appreciated-----thank in advance--Ren

 

Ummm.... Don't do that - it's dangerous.

Now that we have that out of the way - the fan is 'clutched' by a thermal material in the rear fan housing that either engages the clutch or disengages the clutch based on the temperature of the waterpump shaft/clutch attachment point.

When the shaft is hot, the clutch is engaged and will spin the fan at something less than waterpump speed, since the clutch is designed to slip slightly. If it ran at full engine RPM, it would 1) move a lot of air, and 2) make a lot of nose, and 3) cool the engine down more than is necessary.

By allowing the clutch to determine whether the fan spins or not, the engine is able to maintain the correct temperature for clean combustion and smooth running in cold (or hot) conditions.

If your fan can be 'stopped' when the engine is idling, I would suspect that your fan clutch has burned up, or otherwise gone out, and will need replacement to work correctly. These aren't cheap, but they are required, unless you choose to go with a electric fan, which has it's own installation process, et al. If it were me, I'd hit the local junkyard.

Oh, now that you've read this, that clutch in the fan can click into 'drive' mode at any instant, and if you happen to be holding onto it at that moment, you're going to get cut up pretty badly. HTH,

 

a good answer thats nice to see