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Fan Problem
Friend of mine Craig Wickham he’s on forum. Just talked to him and he just got to Florida and discovered the fined aluminum piece on front of fan is hitting radiator cross pieces and coming apart. he said even on fast idle there space in there but at 1500 RPM’s something is moving and hitting. You can see all his post and he replaced everything Clutch-Fan- that aluminum piece all of it. Any ideas for Craig??? He said the little air bag is goog and that safety metal to keep everything from going to far is good.
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22 Replies
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What part of FL is he in? I’ll see if I can help get someone out to him.
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Tradewinds are definitely the go-to place.
What concerned me about the post is there are two stops to prevent damage to the fan or radiator. The first is the length of the belts. When the belts used are the correct length the fan is parallel to the radiator, the blade tips are approximately in line with the shroud and there is no way any part of the fan or its center hub will be near the radiator. But if all the belts should fail (either three belts or a three rib belt) there is likely a mechanical stop on the metal structure around the air bellows.
Before driving the coach or running the engine I would urge that the fan belts and fan travel stop are correct and will prevent damage. When things that are spinning hit things that do not spin it gets expensive.
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Just talked to Craig and he said there is a X brace that goes corner to corner that is pulled away from radiator and that’s what hitting aluminum piece , the suction from fan is pulling X brace into fan, Mine does not have a X brace, is that someone has added????
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If there is a belt involved anywhere, be sure to replace the belt. Our ’88 hit a pot hole and bounced enough to allow the fan to
hit the radiator (towed in for repairs). Repairs were done but no one considered the belt. A year or so later the same thing happened but only destroyed a couple of blades. I was able to cut some blades off and some down to get a semi-balanced fan and make it to our destination 4 hours away. Prevost sent us a new fan AND a new belt and we have not had any further issues.
I will be replacing that belt every couple of years to ensure this never happens again.
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If the X brace came loose how could you reattach back to radiator, If you were careful could you drill a hole right in the middle of the X brace where they intersect fish a small stainless screw, small in diameter but long enough to go all the way through the radiator and put a fender washer on the front of radiator for strength, as to be careful to miss tubes in radiator??
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Why was the brace there in the fist place, and since it was there, what exactly was its purpose?
Second, how is it possible for air flow through a radiator be of sufficient force and speed to bend or deflect anything that is strong enough to be described as a brace?
Something is not right and it sounds kind of Mickey Mouse.
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Talked to Craig this morning and he said the X brace is like 1/4 inch round, Is that common on his coach I think it’s a 95 chassis?? He ordered belts a little shorter.
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I had a 87, 96, and now 05 (chassis years) and don’t remember braces.
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Mine does not have them I do understand the rad protection idea..Would have to be done rite!!! Bob
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Is this similar to what your bracing looks like? I suspect at least two or more of the bolts snapped off. You’ll likely have to remove the radiator to drill out/extract the broken bolts.
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My bus (1999 chassis) has a single “brace” running diagonally across the radiator. It is about 2-2 1/2 inches away from the fan blades. It is stiff enough that I don’t see how it could be drawn into the fan. I would like to see pics if available.
Doug
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Art, any follow-up? Crisis averted?
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He said shorter belts will be there this week?
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As I posted earlier, belts are one way to prevent the fan from hitting the radiator, but the mechanical stop also has to be fixed otherwise a belt failure ends up being the same problem only worse.
When the engine is running the belts should have never allowed contact between the fan and radiator. In a pre-trip inspection wasn’t this seen?
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Not sure about others, but I am not aware of any kind of a physical stop for the fan on an 8V92 engine. The fan is held in place with a balance between the fan belts (3 belts or a 1 piece 3 belt, belt) and the diagonal belt tensioner.
In my case, over the years, the belt had stretched and I just kept tightening the tensioner. There is then a thing I will call a torsion bar that holds the assembly in place. The fan can physically move toward and away from the radiator a little bit due to that setup. My belt got stretched enough to allow the fan to hit the radiator (twice) before I realized the problem. The shop that repaired the radiator damage missed the cause completely.
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