Hey there Guest!
Hey - did you know if you click on the title of a thread it will take you to the first unread post since you last visited that thread?
but were afraid to ask: 
STOP!! Never post your email address in open forums. Bots can "harvest" your email! If you must share your email use a Private Message or use the 
smilie in place of the real @
Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
Steve_S
Yoda
Offline
Today's lesson: Follow your own advise.
I took a friend for a ride up the coast in my MGA to buy some parts for his MGB at Moss Motors. It was a lovely day and all was well in the world. We bought parts, ate some lunch in Santa Barbara and then headed home.
Half way home there was a large BANG and then heavy vibration. I immediately pulled it out of gear and put my hand on the key, ready to shut it down. But something didn't feel right. It didn't feel like internal engine. All gauges were good and idle was normal. Still coasting at 40MPH I decided to slip it into 4th gear and see what happens. It went right in and the car drove fine, but still a heavy rapid vibration. I would think broken crankshaft except the engine was running fine.
I took it back out of gear and revved a couple times easy. The engine revved normally but RPMs affected the vibration greatly. So this eliminates the transmission, U-joints and drive shaft.
The only things I could think of were engine mount and fan blade. I drove it easy, finding an RPM which minimized vibration and pulled to a safe place off the freeway. Popped the bonnet open and what's this? Missing fan blade! I had a heat flash as I inspected the radiator and hoses for damage. Nothing. And no slice in the bonnet. Boy was I lucky! The only damage was a scratched bolt on the steering column bracket. And there sitting on the crossmember was a bent up fan blade. Cool, a souvenier! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
So there were now two options. Remove the opposite blade and hope the fan would balance enough to drive the 30 miles home without damaging the water pump, or remove the fan entirely and hope it doesn't overheat. MGAs don't have very good air flow as it is and this engine is 300cc larger than stock. But once my co-pilot du jour pointed out how thick the metal on the fan was, I decided that I liked option two best. So I removed the fan and began the drive home.
It ran hot on the two big grades and nearly overheated once when I got stuck in some traffic, but the car made it home like a true champion without nary a complaint. I love these cars!
So the point of this thread is that when you know that 40-year-old metal fans can fly apart without warning, and you drive at high RPMs daily, and you warn other owners about the damgers of old metal fans, and you know you should be running a plastic fan... replace your fan, dummy!
This fan was 23 years old and I'm a big dummy for letting it stay in the car this long.
One interesting note... on the drive home, the engine was noticably smoother than before the fan incident. I now highly recommend removing the fan from any engine to see if it makes a difference. If it does, your fan is out of balance which can stress the water pump and introduce vibration into the steering wheel and pedals. I had only the slightest vibration which felt completely normal, but now you can barely tell the engine is running!
I took a friend for a ride up the coast in my MGA to buy some parts for his MGB at Moss Motors. It was a lovely day and all was well in the world. We bought parts, ate some lunch in Santa Barbara and then headed home.
Half way home there was a large BANG and then heavy vibration. I immediately pulled it out of gear and put my hand on the key, ready to shut it down. But something didn't feel right. It didn't feel like internal engine. All gauges were good and idle was normal. Still coasting at 40MPH I decided to slip it into 4th gear and see what happens. It went right in and the car drove fine, but still a heavy rapid vibration. I would think broken crankshaft except the engine was running fine.
I took it back out of gear and revved a couple times easy. The engine revved normally but RPMs affected the vibration greatly. So this eliminates the transmission, U-joints and drive shaft.
The only things I could think of were engine mount and fan blade. I drove it easy, finding an RPM which minimized vibration and pulled to a safe place off the freeway. Popped the bonnet open and what's this? Missing fan blade! I had a heat flash as I inspected the radiator and hoses for damage. Nothing. And no slice in the bonnet. Boy was I lucky! The only damage was a scratched bolt on the steering column bracket. And there sitting on the crossmember was a bent up fan blade. Cool, a souvenier! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
So there were now two options. Remove the opposite blade and hope the fan would balance enough to drive the 30 miles home without damaging the water pump, or remove the fan entirely and hope it doesn't overheat. MGAs don't have very good air flow as it is and this engine is 300cc larger than stock. But once my co-pilot du jour pointed out how thick the metal on the fan was, I decided that I liked option two best. So I removed the fan and began the drive home.
It ran hot on the two big grades and nearly overheated once when I got stuck in some traffic, but the car made it home like a true champion without nary a complaint. I love these cars!
So the point of this thread is that when you know that 40-year-old metal fans can fly apart without warning, and you drive at high RPMs daily, and you warn other owners about the damgers of old metal fans, and you know you should be running a plastic fan... replace your fan, dummy!
This fan was 23 years old and I'm a big dummy for letting it stay in the car this long.
One interesting note... on the drive home, the engine was noticably smoother than before the fan incident. I now highly recommend removing the fan from any engine to see if it makes a difference. If it does, your fan is out of balance which can stress the water pump and introduce vibration into the steering wheel and pedals. I had only the slightest vibration which felt completely normal, but now you can barely tell the engine is running!
A friendly reminder - be careful what links you click on here. If a link is posted by someone you don't know, or the URL looks fishy, DON'T CLICK. Spammers sometimes post links that lead to sites that can infect your computer, so be mindful what you click.