Electric cooling fans

[Bud & Donna Elliott]

When I first got the car running, I thought I would be OK for relatively brief periods of being stuck in traffic. This car has always had problems in traffic. It has a fat radiator and the horn holes are blocked off. Today, after a short run, cut the car off for a few minutes another short run and cut the car off for a few minutes, I got stuck at a couple of traffic lights and watched the temp soar. Even after I got moving again, it was reluctant to come back down for way too long. This was on an 85 degree day. I need a recommendation for an auxiliary cooling fan. I’m concerned that the fans I have looked at all want 13.5 volts DC and that the old generator will not be up to the task at idle. Any recommendations for make/model that will help get me thru those stop lights and won’t be a juice hog would be appreciated.

[stu]

Don’t worry about the 13.5V business. The system will be around there if the generator is charging anyway. Instead add up the total amps you are drawing, the radiator fan, wipers, lights, heater fan, radio etc… Do you have AC? That clutch will draw some too. If you have the original generator you have about 30A available, so you don’t want all that to add up to more than 30A. Of course, if it’s raining, you won’t need the rad fan…

As far as what fan to get, all I can add to the research already done is that the 750 CFM fan I had seemed to do nothing helpful for the cooling. More, maybe double the CFM are needed.

Stu

[Bud & Donna Elliott]

In a panic, I tried the old turn on the heater trick and then remembered that it isn’t hooked up yet.

[cleandan]

pdq67, I am curious about what temps you reached while sitting in traffic?

[Bud & Donna Elliott]

Hard to tell. We are talking about an old British gage. It was probably hitting around 220. I may temporarily install a real gage to get a true reading just to be sure.
I have seen this many times before in the car when I owned it many years ago. The problem has always been that once it gets that far it doesn’t take long to peg the gage if you don’t either get moving or find a place to let it rest. Of course, once it gets hot, it doesn’t want to start again.
I am probably over-reacting because every little sound, gage fluctuation, or smell could mean that I screwed something up putting the car back together. I have only driven it a little over 100 miles and most of that has been on 15 minute drives around the neighborhood. The goal is to get it to where I can trust it to take me to some of these events I have been missing while I was in Sunbeam withdrawal.

[Mike Schreiner]

Bud, !st get a mechanical smiths guage, the stock ones are not accurate, then dont waste $ on a low cfm fan, get a good one (I bought a black Majic brand)…there is also several other tricks to get it to run cool in fLORIDA HEAT…CHECK Tiger toms cooling tech tip….Mike in Jupiter

[Gilles Blais]

Hi Bud, If you have driven only a few hundred miles and you are on a freshly rebuilt engine it will run cooler after it loosens up but that takes a few thousand miles.
Cheers, Gilles

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