Fan blade clearance

rmyers

rmyers

Junior Member
I recently purchased a 1928 Model A Special Coupe from my uncle and when I bought it he told me that the fan blade was hitting the top radiator hose. I had to change the engine out and after installing a new water pump and fan blade it has only about a 1/16" clearance without the hose. I am at wits end and have asked the guys at Snyders Antique for their opinions which they had a few and I checked and everything appears to be as it should. I am so close to getting this car running but I can't run it with no clearance. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
There have been more than a couple of posts on this topic already. I had the same problem with my truck and ended up grinding about an 1/8" off the fan blade. Every thing anyone told me to check turned out to be correct and I still had an interference. If you go this route, please make sure you check the balance of the fan blade so you don't cause any other damage.

Bob
 
Are the pads under the radiator mounts? How do the hood gaps look? Are they even up and down the rear edge of the hood?
 
Does the pulley on your fan line up with the crank pulley? Is it by chance a little aft of the crank pulley? Is there excessive end play of the water pump shaft?
 
The rubber pads, under the radiator, should be at least 1/4" thick. Some repro. kits come with too skinny pads.
MIKE :)
 
There are pads under the radiator but I'm not sure they are 1/4" thick. The rear portion of the hood lines up much better than the front does. It has a brand new water pump on it and the packing nut is snug at this point. The pulley alignment is a little off but not by much. I'm not sure about the hand crank yet I haven't looked at that yet, gotta find it first (handle), but the castle nut is tightened enough to get the cotter pin in it. The radiator neck and water pump neck line up good.
 
I had the exact same problem last year.I have a 29 model with a 30 motor the necks on the motor are different. I had the guy who record my radiator re do the radiator neck to solve the problem. Ishould have changed the neck on the motor it would have been easier. it would be nice if this solves the problem. latecomer
 
If the radiator pads check out OK, the front and rear motor mounts are OK and the front one is tightened down the correct amount for the hand crank to fit properly, and the frame isn't bent, then the top radiator pipe on a repro radiator is probably in the wrong position. You could install a new two blade aluminum fan. Original fans are 16" diameter and the aluminum ones I've seen are 15 1/2" diameter, so you'll gain 1/4" clearance to the top pipe.
 
i dont mean to get off the subject with the 1929 A, but reading this post i was thinking about my 1949 F1 and i have a question also......how far should the fan be away from the radiator on it???.....i just recently put a EAB mercery flathead in it. it bolts up great, ****** and all.....but the fan looks to be quite aways from the radiator. with this, will i have cooling problems???.....i do have a shroud on it, but the fan does not go in it. its right in front of it.....
 
rmyers,
"any solutions"....well, I waited and no one mentioned this possible solution so:
On my '29 A, I'm running a six blade plastic fan. The blades on this type fan are MUCH shorter than the metal blade fans available from vendors. They are a bit more $ than metal, but have plenty of upside, besides 'fixing' the 'clearance' problem you are experiencing,i.e.- less weight on water pump, more/better cooling(OMG..what did I just say!!!).
 
Where did you get the plastic fan from? I took the radiator back off today and measured the fan and it is 15-5/8" long. I would rather put a plastic fan on than cut down a 2 blade, for now anyway. I looked at the front motor mount and it is tilting backwards toward the rear of the engine and it does not sit flat on the crossmember. The only way I can think of that will change that is to move the rearend and everything forward. I can't see that that is possible though. I think I am going to put another piece of rubber under the radiator and see how that does. The only down side is how it is going to change the hood alignment.
 
I don't understand how anything could have changed. I have repro parts and I understand that they are not always made the exact same but I can't imagine that they would be that different.
 
rmyers,

Have you tried tightening the front motor mount? It sounds like that is possibly the source of your problem.
 
rmyers said:
Where did you get the plastic fan from? I took the radiator back off today and measured the fan and it is 15-5/8" long. I would rather put a plastic fan on than cut down a 2 blade, for now anyway. I looked at the front motor mount and it is tilting backwards toward the rear of the engine and it does not sit flat on the crossmember. The only way I can think of that will change that is to move the rearend and everything forward. I can't see that that is possible though. I think I am going to put another piece of rubber under the radiator and see how that does. The only down side is how it is going to change the hood alignment.
Click to expand...

You can purchase the six blade plastic fan from mostly any vendor. Check you catalogue under fans. There are several choices, with the 6 blade plastic being the most expensive at about $55/60 .
Can you post pics for us to look at you rig? Hmm, sounds like you may/could have other problems("engine tilted" backward..frame bent, rear mounts askew??).
 
I echo here with the front motor mount being too high. We experieced this recently with a reproduction motor mount in a 1928 A Roadster pick up. We finally put the original motor mount back in and it dropped the motor back down to just where it was supposed to be. The original fan blade now perfectly clears the radiator once again. The hand crank still fit the front pully with the too high of front motor mount. The hand crank also fits with the original front motor mount now back on too. Changing the motor mount did not change the hood fit at all. The hood fit fine both before and after.
 
I will try and get some pictures taken tonight that are the correct size. I have some on my laptop but they are too big to post.
I'm not sure if this is the original motor mount or not so I can't compare it with anything unfortunately. I had a gentleman tell me to loosen the rear 4 motor mount bolts and jack up on the transmission and that would lower the front. I tried that but it didn't change anything but I think I'm going to try and loosen the 6 little bolts on the outside and see if that changes anything.
 
rmyers, you can resize the pictures you already have on your laptop. Most photo editing software will let you do this. I use Microsoft Office Picture Manager thusly: right-click on the name of the picture, left-click on "Open with...", left-click on MOPM, then choose from one of the drop-down menus.
 
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