Fan blade on Dart broke today

-
Mopar to ya

Mopar to ya

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 17, 2011
Messages
3,047
Reaction score
206
Location
Rock Creek, Minnesota
I hauled my motor to my buddies shop today, so I have the motor and tranny there waiting to go into the Dart in a week and a half. The time was almost perfect. I could drop off my brother's truck, drive home, drop the Dart at my buddies shop and be there just in time for my wife to get off work and pick me up. Sweet! I was driving down the highway at 65 mph and I thought I had a flat tire. It was shaking badly. I pulled over and at idle it was shaking so violently I thought the dash was going to fall off. I shut it off, got out in rush hour traffic and popped the hood. The first thing I saw was the alternator belt was off. Then I see two blades from the fan lying on top of the power steering pump. How the hell does that happen? It was running very well considering it was only 40 degrees out.

View attachment Broken fan blade.jpg

View attachment Broken fan blade 1.jpg
 
How many blades? What diameter? Clutch? I may be able to help. tmm
 
Looks to me like the bolts were loose or to long and bottomed out before they made contact
 
Maybe over torqued and the fan fatigued with the speed of rotating
 
I have been driving it this way the entire time I have owned the car. You would think I would have felt a vibration at least. The rest of the fan is firmly bolted on. At 65 mph with my rear end I am just shy of 4000 rpm. I never heard a bang or clank or anything. It just started vibrating and I thought I had a flat. I was pissed because I finally bought a spare and a jack base for the car and they were both back in my garage! The radiator is fine, as you said, thank goodness. The hood appears fine as well, and I just painted top and bottom when I put the scoop on. Thank goodness, because the underneath part of the hood looks as perfect as the top.
 
Happened to me once, took out the radiator. Previous owner had put studs in the water pump and the unthreaded section was a bit to long......
 
i have never in all my days seen that happen. i chopped up a cat up once that was sleeping on my warm engine on a cold day, threw cat guts everywhere, scared the sh*t out of me, made a helluva racket
 
73AbodEE said:
i have never in all my days seen that happen. i chopped up a cat up once that was sleeping on my warm engine on a cold day, threw cat guts everywhere, scared the sh*t out of me, made a helluva racket
Click to expand...

Did that once too. Thank goodness I was parked next to a dumpster.
 
Boy I have a flex fan on mine now and I bought a 7 blade fan and thermo clutch, and now I am worried this might happen to me, did you have a shroud on?? and how many blades was it and did you have a thermo clutch or was it direct drive??
 
I had one blade turn 90 degrees into my raditator in my 70 340 duster years ago. I punched it and heard a terrible noise and steam. Opened the hood and there it was one blade bent 90 degrees into the rad. Weird and frustrating.
 
412 Stroker said:
Boy I have a flex fan on mine now and I bought a 7 blade fan and thermo clutch, and now I am worried this might happen to me, did you have a shroud on?? and how many blades was it and did you have a thermo clutch or was it direct drive??
Click to expand...

Direct drive 7 blade flex fan with shroud. Missed the radiator and shroud and was laying on top of the power steering pump. I wanted to reuse this fan on the new motor because it kept the temp at or below 200 all summer long. It worked well.
 
I got a thermo-clutched one if you need it. Off an 86 TRuck. Its huge though 20" , Ill put it in the sale section if you dont need it, PM me.
 
A flex fan will cut/kill you to death. Can you take a pic of it, looking head to the break? Any signs of fatigue?
 
The car is 40 miles away in my buddies shop right now. I won't get there until Saturday most likely. I'll take the rest off and inspect.
 
If the car is not original and your not worried about having the original fan go electric. You'll never have that happen again. You'll also free up some ponies.
 

Attachments

  • DSCF0093.jpg
    119.2 KB · Views: 346
Oldmanmopar said:
If the car is not original and your not worried about having the original fan go electric. You'll never have that happen again. You'll also free up some ponies.
Click to expand...
100% agreed on that! Also who made the fans and rad?
 
I was thinking that the fan was slightly bent at one time, the water pump was bad, or the fan was just fatigued by constant high revs.....
I'll bet your water pump is toast now too if it wasn't before.
Yes, i agree that you were very lucky that it wasn't worse!
Just thinking/typing out loud.........
 
That sucks, but here is a story for you. I used to own an early 80's Jeep Grand Wagoneer. I was driving it down the highway one day and BOOM, RRRRR then steam everywhere. I pulled to the side of the road. Then a second later I see a ford van pull in front of me. I figured that they stopped to see if I needed help, so I popped my hood and my fan and water pump shaft were gone. I walked up to the van to see if I could get a ride and it was one of those handicapped vans and the lady inside said that she ran over and was dragging whatever I lost.

I looked under the rear axle of her van and my fan was wedged between her rear axle housing and brake line and it was pouring brake fluid out of it. Well not only did I get to pay for the tow and brake line on her van I had to limp my Jeep to the nearest autozone and fix it in the parking lot. Not a good day. So you should feel lucky.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top