Failing fan clutch?

Cubey

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Funny, picking a 91 E350 7.3 pulls it up. The others are the same as the 85 6.9 obviously, so i guess rockauto didn't enter it as beiing compatible. Maybe they will still have one later this week when I get to my summer destination and get a PO box opened.

Thanks for mentioning it.

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Cubey

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An electric (not mechanical) Equus is what I put in my F250 IDI. Might do the same in the RV, if I don't outright wait and move it over from the F250.

Or maybe I'll just go mechanical this time. We shall see.
 

4x4dave

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I chose to get rid of the clutch fan and put electric on my 6.9l f250. I built myself. They work good. Let's see if i can post some pics. The fans i got from Amazon.
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Cubey

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Hm, the factory gauge is acting questionable at best. It was climbing mighty high today, but never all the way (a bit beyond mid way) to the point i pulled off a couple times to be safe. But I think it's getting stuck sort of and continuing to climb rather than going down and up. I tapped it while going down the road and it instantly dropped a lot once. Then never got up mid way again.

I had 25-30mph (or more gusts?) cross winds blowing me all over the place. I was mostly doing 45mph on 2 lane back highways (almst no traffic) for most of the 60 miles I had to go today. A portion, about 15 miles total between 2 stretches, had it purely as a tail wind, I was doing 60 with almost no throttle.

The wind was so bad, it knocked my awning brackets loose and they were dragging on the road after just a mile in the wind. I had to stop and gorilla tape the brackets to help it stay still, and wrapped a bungee cord around the lock switch thing to keep it from unrolling, which is what caused it. Thank goodness for a wide shoulder and almost no traffic on that back highway. It stayed put the rest of the way.

I'm at my summer destination now, where I won't be driving more than 2-3 miles total a day, no more than twice a week, maybe once. I got the PO box opened today too. So, I'm going to order the Motorcraft fan clutch shortly, and hold onto it until this fall. It won't ever see full operating temp for at last 3 months, if not 4-5. In a couple months, once my finances get more stable (the reason I came up here to begin with, it's so cheap here, plus no 110 degree heat..) I will order a mechanical water temp gauge and install that first. Then I can see what it's actually doing.

There are no free rental tools within 35-40 miles of here, so I'll have to at least drive that far, if not 60 (so I don't go out of my way this fall when I leave) to access the free rental fan clutch tool. So, at least I'll have a real temp gauge to go by until I get the fan clutch replaced. Unless a Napa about 10 miles away has them. But i'd rather wait.
 

Alwaysreadyrob

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dammit ! just picked my truck up from the shop $ 2600.00 of work done ✅ and AAA to the rescue back to the shop it goes.
 

franklin2

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I chose to get rid of the clutch fan and put electric on my 6.9l f250. I built myself. They work good. Let's see if i can post some pics. The fans i got from Amazon.
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How long have you run that setup? Ever pull a heavy load on a hot day with it? That setup looks good, but those fans don't look like high cfm units. If you get fans with enough cfm to cool the engine under heavy load, the stock alternator will not have enough output to run them. Been there, done that.
 

Cubey

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How long have you run that setup? Ever pull a heavy load on a hot day with it? That setup looks good, but those fans don't look like high cfm units. If you get fans with enough cfm to cool the engine under heavy load, the stock alternator will not have enough output to run them. Been there, done that.

That's why I figure a new fan clutch is best. It's cheap and spec'd for the engine it's put on. Plus, a huge metal blade, not little plastic ones. I'd be concerned the plastic might get too soft dealing with loaded IDI temps. While they might not break or outright melt, they might warp.
 

4x4dave

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Sorry it takes me time to get back on here, i put the fans on after engine rebuild, I have had the engine running at 105° out door temperature i only had to fire up one of four fans to keep it cool, have not pulled heavy loads yet, stock alternator drew not bad with all four running, fans advertised at 1500 ctm each but reality is about 1250 cfm each if the radiator is clean about 900 cfm if radiator is dirty,
 

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