Texas Cooler Versus Flex Fan

I currently have over heating issues at idle. Everything is fine when the car is moving. I have installed a SS flex fan and a radiator shroud from BCS. That has helped significantly, however, I still have an occasional problem and would like to eliminate it if I can. Does anyone have any experience going from a flex fan to the Texas Cooler fan or know of a source to learn about air flow generated by both fans? Thanks George

George,
Funny you should ask. Today I'm planning on removing my SS flex fan and putting on a Texas Kooler fan (sourced from Moss). I also have a BCS fan shroud.

I have a simalar issue, i.e. temp sorta okay at speed but climbs quickly when going slow. I talked to the technical guys at Ron Davis Radiators in AZ, they do custom aluminum radiators for just about every application you can imagine. The gentleman I talked to said if the temp is okay at speed, I had a flow problem. He said dump the flex fan, use a fan shroud and, here's the big one, make sure 50% of the fan blade is exposed. He said the fan should "shed" the air it is taking in to clean air, not the fan shroud. He said if it is hitting the fan shroud it will cause turbulence which will greatly inhibit the flow.

So, I'm putting on a Texas Kooler fan and I will be ensuring that 50% of the blade is exposed. If it isn't, I will cut back the BCS shroud until 50% is exposed. The Texas Kooler fan arrived yesterday and my only concern with it is that I expected the blades to be a bit more ridgid than they are... maybe they're strong enough to do the job, we'll see.

Cheers,
Steve

Hey y'all,
Can't address the flex fan but I put on a Texas cooler a couple of months ago and it has made a difference. Before I would get up over 200 degrees quickly when stopped in traffic and now does not go over 190. I also put on a pusher fan which I believe helps as well but think the Texas cooler made the biggest difference. No problem with the fan blades being rigid enough and accepted paint well so correct red color.
Regards,
Mike

Mike, was your Texas Kooler fan the one currently supplied by Moss?

Thanks,
Steve

Steve, Sounds like we have similar problems. Could you share how the change works?

Mike, did you have any issues with mounting the pusher fan? I do not have much room between the x brace and the radiator and do not see how to get the pusher close to the radiator. What size fan did you use?

Thanks George

I installed a flex fan and shroud from BCS many years ago. The fan had seven very highly curved blades. From photos I've seen, it appears BCS is now selling a 6-bladed fan that is not as extreme as the 7-bladed one, and the blades appear to be bent rather than curved.

Anyway, the 7-bladed fan was very effective. It brought idle temps down and kept at-speed temps near the thermostat set point except in extreme conditions. I attributed this to the fan blades flattening out at higher engine speeds, allowing more air to flow through the radiator (that's the theory on flex fans). At idle, the fan moved so much air it would stir up dust under the engine compartment.

But--there's always a 'but'--the flex fan was very noisy at idle, so I removed it and installed a Kooler from the Texas club. The Kooler is not as noisy as the flex fan I had--I've heard the new fan from BCS isn't too noisy--but it also wasn't as effective. I kept the Kooler in and, for the most part, it has been sufficient except in extreme conditions.

The shroud is supposed to mitigate 'eddy currents;' i.e. air being circulated from behind the radiator back through the front. The shroud I got from BCS is a sheetmetal strip that extends from either side of the existing fan shield to the lower radiator mounts. I can't believe it's terribly effective, but probably does help some.

Based on my experience with stock, flex and Kooler fans I believe it definitely helps to pull as much air through the radiator as possible. I don't understand the 'shed 50%' theory; you don't see any high-bypass turbofan jet engines with only a 50% shroud.

Hey George,
I have a 58 BN6 but believe the space between the radiator and front X member is
the same on most 6 cyl Healeys. I had just enough room to mount a 10 inch
diameter fan. In hind sight, think I could have gone with a 12 inch but
seems like the 10 was the recommended size. I bought mine from an Advanced
Auto parts store and saved a bunch over the Moss price for the same fan- about
50% less ! The one from Advance is just an off the shelf Hayden fan like
Moss sells but does not include the relay/thermostat on and off parts. Got a lot of good
advice on how to hook it up electrically from guys on this site. I always have trouble doing
a search for some reason but my post was about 60 days ago. Like I said earlier, the TC fan
did help with my over heating and the pusher fan helps when I am stuck in traffic since not much airflow then.
Regards,
Mike

Steve - when you're talking about '50% exposed', does that mean looking down from above, such that half the blade is hidden by the shroud, but that you can see the rear half?
All - does the Healey overheating issues normally occur at idle, or at speed? ('heat' sure as heck wasn't a problem here this past summer, and now I'm heading out to dump enough antifreeze in to handle -40C/F)
Mike/All: if you're running the pusher fan as well as a 'regular'engine driven fan, does the pusher interfere with air flow at speed, or is it something that doesn't matter at speed?
All: anyone removed their engine driven fan and just gone with the electric pusher? if so, how successful?
Thanks
Doug

Thank you. This is very helpful. George

Mike, I found the previous post. Thanks for the reference. George

Hey Doug,
Believe the pusher does interfere somewhat with the airflow at speed but
not enough to be a problem. It comes into its own when you're sitting at
a stoplight and no airflow other than what the fan blade, Texas cooler or
original can generate. I got stuck in a lot of traffic a week or so ago
when it was mid 90's and between the Texas cooler and the pusher, kept the
temp below 200 and once picked up some speed, went back down to 190 where it will
sit all day. I did have a 54 BN1 with no fan blade and only a pusher fan and although
I did not have it long enough to test in the summer, had no over heating issues otherwise.
Not something I think I would recommend, just the way the BN1 was equipped when I bought it.
Regards,
Mike

Well I pulled out my SS flex fan and installed the Texas Kooler. The SS has a blade depth of 3/4" and the T.K. has a blade depth of 1 1/4"... so a 1/2" gain in blade depth. The SS had 6 symetrically arranged blades and the T.K. has 6 asymetrically arranged blades. The T.K. is a touch lighter than the SS fan but I didn't weigh it just a judgement call. I cut back my BCS fan shroud so 50% of the blade could be seen looking down from the top (just under 3/4"), but I left the top blade guard on the fan the original length.

It is low 70's temp. today so I knew the results would not be definative as my issues occur in the mid-90's. I took it out for a drive anyway... to pretty a day to miss the opportunity. It did seem to be running about 5 deg. cooler (170's)than it ran yesterday but I really won't be able to tell until it's warmer out. I'm not sure we'll get any more hot days to test it (Colorado is starting to see fall).

So there you go... not much to go on at this point. Oh, I didn't notice any difference in noise level, seemed pretty quite to me.
Cheers,
Steve

Hi All,

Just returned and noted the discussion. I have had a Texas Cooler for the past 15 years and initially saw a marginal benefit over my Healey’s original fan and re-cored radiator. Two years ago I installed a recovery system and (2) vertical 4” panels, attached with the radiator mounding bolts, to reduce the air bleed off the end of the Cooler’s fins. The results were significant as exemplified during a sunny 95+ degree 2-hour stop-and-go July 4th Parade in which the car never reached 200-degrees. Although I believe the Cooler was a contributor, I believe the Texas Cool was functionally enabled by the other two additions (Recovery System maintaining a full radiator and the panels lessoning fan bleed) as the Prior year's Parade with Cooler alone yielded 210+ degrees @ 90-degree ambient and lots of ground foam.

By the way, my choice to use the simple vertical panels (paintged black to disappear) over the BCS shroud was primarily based upon my desire to keep that area looking as original as practical.

All the best,

Ray (64BJ8P1)

Was any type of shroud/protector installed from the factory? Our BJ7 has nothing, but the Bug-Eye has a bit of a cover (to keep fingers and tools from contacting the fan?).
Doug

Doug,

The BJ7 did not have an encircling fan shroud but did have a small red protective shield, about a foot in length, attached to the top radiator tank.

Ray

I forgot, I have these too, as I need to resolder the shroud on my own radiator...

-- while your changing out your fan
recore the radiator and upgrade the core

I recall that the 3000s have a shroud on each side in front of the radiator to keep air from circling back from behind to the front of the radiator. This was not (originally) present on the earlier cars. I made some for mine, but I made several changes during the rebuild (Texas cooler, rally vents, recovery tank) so I can’t say the effect of each change.

Since we're bouncing around the issue of heat and even more heat, have a look at a recent thread entitled 'Big Healey Fender Vents' https://www.britishcarforum.com/bcforum/ubbthreads.php/topics/698942/Re_Big_Healey_fender_vents
and follow Ray Carbone's link to his article "I always wanted a cool car"
Ours is now in storage for the winter, but I'll be digging through all this discussion next spring and doing some of the discussed chanes.
Doug