Fan clutch fails - electric fan solution
posted @ Monday, August 1, 2005
The trip to Indianapolis two weeks ago for the fire truck muster was a warm one. The ambient temperature outside was over 90 and it as incredibly humid. The air conditioning system had just been reconnected and charged and we thought all would be well. Such was not the case. The truck started overheating less than thirty miles into Illinois, we even had a minor boil over issue at one fuel stop. It turned out that the premium fan clutch from Perma Cool just could not hold up. We knew something was amiss when we saw the oily film all over the fan, fan shroud and underside of the hood. Without the a/c on, the truck ran at it's normal operating temperature. With the a/c on, the truck ran extremely hot, but not quite hot enough to force the a/c to be turned off. That was until we would get off the highway and then the temperature gauge would skyrocket. We quickly learned to turn off the a/c about a mile or so before we exited the highway so the engine would have time to return to normal before heading down the off ramp.
We knew we had to do something drastic because another fan clutch would end
up failing as well. So we contacted a couple of engine cooling specialists,
including