OT: Finding a mechanical engine fan by dimensions Featured

I ended up ordering the fan (Derale 17118) from Amazon, it came in yesterday. Stamped "Made in USA". Didn't fit 8-)

The central hole has two diameters of centering boss, 2 3/8" and 2 5/8", each clocked to its own bolt circle, I needed the 2 5/8" surfaces. To my surprise they were about .015" undersize. The hole was clearly punched, since it wasn't round, but how it got fifteen thou undersize baffles me. Only idea that comes to mind is that over the years the punch and die wore, either from wear or resharpening, and nobody noticed. Or, they noticed and didn't care.

A few carefully counted strokes of a rasp got the fan to fit the clutch. The centering seems no worse than the blade runout so I'll try to use it.

The most impressive discovery so far is the teflon valve stem packing. I bought it years ago to seal a flange on an espresso machine boiler, only to discover the bolts were merely loose. It sat in the toolbox for years until saving my bacon on this project. I'll be tempted to try it the next time there's a leaky valve or differential cover to seal.

Thanks to all for reading and writing!

bob prohaska

It's an IHC v345. AFAIK only the sixes were AMC, 232 and 258, there was no

Now that I've got the pump in and fan on the clutch after a little freehand file work I'll try to stuff it back together tomorrow to see what else goes wrong....

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

This place claims to have some thread-on clutches but you'd better sit down before looking at the price😬

That would be about the right size for it to get a final machining operation after punching to true it up nice🤔

Sounds like you've got this problem handled now and will soon be tooling around again in vintage style🙂

Indeed, and note that they're used. Already have one of those 8-)

If the design permitted servicing I'd have been tempted to keep the screw-on style. As a crimped assembly there's no obvious hope of repair, even if wear parts like bearings and seals could be bought or adapted. That's what motivated replacing the clutch along with the water pump.

The idea of having the old water pump rebuilt might make sense if it can be done inexpensively, just to have a spare on hand. That would require pulling and reinstalling both pulley hub and impeller, which would take at least some fixturing.

Thanks for writing,

bob prohaska

You can buy both, water pump and fan clutch from Rockauto for $100 or less depending on which variety you want. The only thing I couldn't find there was the fan blade you needed...

In the description for the Screw-On clutch I previously linked to they suggest buying their "kit" that contains the water pump, clutch and fan blade. I doubt they sell many of those screw on clutches at that price😉