Electric Fan?

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Turboman said:
On my TD, I notched the cowl, and replaced the bolts holding the cowl halves together with little stainless bolts, with nuts and spring washers.
With a long extension bar, a socket, and an assistant holding a spanner underneath, it took about ten minutes at most to remove the cowl and fan.

Some later Tdi etc have a one piece cowl, they were much harder to get off.
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My na was one piece, it was a pain until I made the cuts

Oh and I fitted my electric fan not because of perceived gains but it was what I got when I did the tdi conversion as despite searching I couldn’t find a cowling in time.
 
I fitted a leccy fan on my 200Tdi when the viscous unit went tits up, wasnt a lot in it price wise.
In 8 years its only come on twice, when rock crawling for over an hour.
Major benifit for me is the amount of room in front of the engine when you need to do something. Does warm up quicker though.
 
I fitted an electric to my 200tdi, with the x-eng thermostat control switch and a manual override on the dash. But that was because the engine was not fitted with any fan (or thermostat but that's a different story). Even driving through Morocco in the summer it only came automatically once. There were a few times where I manually switched it to be safe for slow hill climbs but would probably have been fine.
I would not bother spending out on expensive aftermarket fans, just get your self down to your local scrap yard and pull one off a large saloon. Mine is a twin fan unit from an air conditioned mondeo. Much more powerful and sturdy than the aftermarket ones.
 
flat said:
That is another advantage of an electic tbh, the front of engine bay is empty basically, the fan only adds about an inch or two to the depth of the rad - you can sit on the front slam panel with your feet in the axle to work on the head!
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Exactly what I do:D
 
I prefer viscous and cowl as LR must have thought about it and decided this to be the best option for such a vehicle and it's potential range of uses. They've always worked for me and I've had only one viscous seize in 6 land rovers and 1 range Rover and when they do it usually fails on which is better than off. One hears stories of rogue fans coming off and eating rads but I think this is relatively rare.
My current 90 2.5P has a Kenlowe thermostatic fan fitted by the PO and it's only come on in crawling traffic, but like @mikescuba I'm checking the temp gauge the whole time or listening for it to come on. I haven't changed it because I haven't found a suitable viscous unit, fan and cowl. I have not noticed any significant difference in warm up times, full economy or performance with the leccy fan; mind you these have been petrol and V8s which do warm up quicker than diesels.
Personally I think the 'science' behind it is false - any energy savings from mechanical losses can't be that much less than that lost transforming mechanical energy (engine-driven water pump) to electrical energy (alternator) back to mechanical energy (fans).
 
Oldseadog said:
Now got me thinking about scrappies, and where to find one locally!
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My local one closed down at the end of the summer. I think health and safety and ebay has killed a lot of them off. But it is a poor substitute for climbing over piles of semi-dismantled cars to find and remove the part you need.
 
dag019 said:
My local one closed down at the end of the summer. I think health and safety and ebay has killed a lot of them off. But it is a poor substitute for climbing over piles of semi-dismantled cars to find and remove the part you need.
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I miss a traditional scrappy, I used to fix my cars with bits from them all the time, sometimes it wouldn’t even be the same brand but I would make it work.

Inside to love having a rummage, sometimes I would find something I didn’t know I needed. Not the same with online parts resellers etc
 
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Nothing better than crawling and lying in the oily mud trying to find the bit you wanted right underneath the one at the bottom of the stack, only to find that the socket that you took with you has dropped off somewhere betweeen lying down and having crawled to within reach, knowing that, somewhere in the mud the blood and the oil, is the only 14mm socket you had left!!
Happy days!!
 
Oldseadog said:
Nothing better than crawling and lying in the oily mud trying to find the bit you wanted right underneath the one at the bottom of the stack, only to find that the socket that you took with you has dropped off somewhere betweeen lying down and having crawled to within reach, knowing that, somewhere in the mud the blood and the oil, is the only 14mm socket you had left!!
Happy days!!
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Ahh...happy days! T'Interweb, useful though it is, just ain't got that "hands on" something....
 
Oldseadog said:
Nothing better than crawling and lying in the oily mud trying to find the bit you wanted right underneath the one at the bottom of the stack, only to find that the socket that you took with you has dropped off somewhere betweeen lying down and having crawled to within reach, knowing that, somewhere in the mud the blood and the oil, is the only 14mm socket you had left!!
Happy days!!
Click to expand...

And you had the benefit of practicing while you were doing it, so if you got it wrong and broke it at least you had another chance.
 
Fitted electric when swapping from 2.5 NA to 300tdi. Kit came with fan. No noticeable difference in performance as i had no benchmark, but theoretical improvement in MPG. Apparently it requires a few hp to turn the fan so it makes sense it will affect fuel economy.
 
dstainton said:
Fitted electric when swapping from 2.5 NA to 300tdi. Kit came with fan. No noticeable difference in performance as i had no benchmark, but theoretical improvement in MPG. Apparently it requires a few hp to turn the fan so it makes sense it will affect fuel economy.
Click to expand...


You wont believe the amount of effort truck makers are putting into making viscous fans more efficient and they talk of 0.02 percent mpg improvement to us irrelevant, but add in all the other 0.02 percents and you are then more fuel efficient then your competitors and over the 1 millions ks a truck will do in its lifetime thats some serious money.

The fan can be controlled by the engine/a-con/retarder ecus, the speed of the fan is also monitored.
 
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