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A thermal clutch fan operates using silicon fluid as a viscous coupling medium. As your engine heats up, the thermal spring on the front of the clutch expands, which opens a valve allowing the silicon fluid to drive your clutch at an increased RPM.
When should a fan clutch engage?
What Temperature Does a Fan Clutch Engage? The majority of them engages when the air temperature goes around 170°F, which means that engine temperature is around 180-190°F. Usually, they can reduce it by about 20°F before disengaging.
How do you test a fan clutch?
To confirm the diagnosis, start with this simple test: Spin the fan as hard as you can on an engine that has not been started that day. If the fan rotates more than five times, you can bet the clutch is bad. You should feel some resistance and the fan may spin up to three times, depending on the ambient temperature.
What are the symptoms of a bad fan clutch?
How to Tell If Your Fan Clutch Is Going Bad? Vehicle overheating. An overheating engine is often the first symptom that is commonly associated with a bad or failing fan clutch. Loose and Wobbling Fan. Excessively loud cooling fans. A decrease in acceleration, power & fuel efficiency.
Should a fan clutch spin freely when cold?
A fan clutch is a thermostatic motor conditioning fan that may freewheel at low temp when cooling isn’t required, enabling the engine to heat up quicker and reducing engine load.
What engages a clutch fan?
Most fan clutches are filled with a silicone-based oil. The oil is held in an internal reservoir when the fan is disengaged. To engage the fan, internal valves open and allow the fluid to fill the working area of the clutch. This creates friction between the drive plate and the housing, causing the fan to spin.
How tight should a fan clutch be?
Snugged up is Good Enough. For “The Jesus Nut” to the Threaded outer portion of the Water Pump Snugged Tight is Fine.
Should a fan clutch spin all the time?
Spin the fan. Electronic types might freewheel, but most fan clutches should spin with a little effort. If the fan spins more than three times, you may have a bad fan clutch. If the fan doesn’t spin at all, the bearing may be seized.
Does a fan clutch make noise?
Often times, it’s the fan clutch. When the clutch shoe inside the part gets stuck, it fails to disengage. When the fan is locked up, the cooling fan is permanently engaged. This causes the roaring noise.
Can you drive with a bad fan clutch?
A failing fan clutch can actually cause the engine fan to become loose and wobble. Sometimes this wobble can be heard while driving, especially at freeway speeds. You can turn on your car’s engine while the vehicle is in park or neutral, pop the hood, and see for yourself that the fan is wobbling as it spins.
Will a bad fan clutch affect AC?
Absolutely, a bad one can damage your air conditioning system, as it acts as a heat exchanger for the air conditioning unit. The engine fan keeps the condenser cool which helps to keep the convertible’s AC system running smoothly.
Why is fan clutch engaged cold?
A thermal fan clutch is engaged on a cold startup because the fluid drains into the working area when the engine is shut off. The fan clutch will slow down shortly after startup as result of a pumping action produced by a difference in speed between the shaft and the body of a clutch.
What’s the difference between thermal and non thermal fan clutch?
A non-thermal fan clutch is nothing more than a thermal fan clutch always partly engaged. It provides adequate cooling when needed, however, it does not save you money by disengaging (operating at a lower RPM) when additional cooling is not needed.
Does a clutch fan pull or push air?
Neither. The fan on your car pulls outside air through your radiator to remove the heat from the engine coolant flowing through it. The fan increases air flow when it is necessary due to slow speed driving which does not move enough air through the radiator to maintain coolant temperature or on very hot days.
Will a fan clutch tighten itself?
it will tighten itself down just fine.
How do I know if my viscous fan is working?
How do you know if its working properly? When your motor is hot, you should be able to hear the fan kick in. If you can’t, pop the bonnet, and turn the vehicle off while watching the fan. If it comes to a fairly abrupt stop, the fan hub is working properly.
Can you lubricate a fan clutch?
Fan Clutch The bearings that support the drive shaft for this clutch regularly experience high temperatures. Krytox™ lubricants have low volatility and high viscosity, providing long life and excellent lubrication to the fan clutch bearing under these high temperature conditions.
Does a fan clutch have bearings?
Fan bearings’ essential role Well, not quite. We may have gotten to the nitty gritty, but there’s one more component to a fan clutch that you need to know about — the fan bearing. A fan bearing (or pulley bearing) is the part that the fan spins on, and requires reliable operation to keep it running smoothly.
What does a broken fan clutch sound like?
Another common symptom of a faulty fan clutch is excessively loud cooling fans. This may result in an excessively loud engine from the fan blowing at full speed. The sound may be easily audible and present at all times when the engine is cold and hot.
