Cooling Fan Adapter to Thin 1 1/8" Flex Fan

[Blown]

Perhaps these have been available for some time, but I just found this adapter which screws-on to the stock water pump pulley just like the stock clutch/fan assembly, flex-a-lite 851 fan spacer/adapter:

It was very easy to bolt the adapter, spacer and fan together outside the vehicle and then screw the whole unit on in that tight space, just like the stock Clutch/Fan combo.

This is the Fan, though it's a Standard rotation fan or clockwise and Explorer's are Reverse or Counterclockwise:

The adapter, spacer and thin fan made simple work of cooling this rig with Blower pulley' and belt out in front of the accessories......................The thin fan sits out in front of the blower stuff.

The adapter is 1 1/4" wide with a 1" wide spacer. That put the trailing edge of the fan 1/2" from the supercharger pulleys, 3/4" from the supercharger belt, and 1" from the radiator. It's tighter than usual as they recommend a minimum 3/4" rear clearance and 1" radiator clearance. I grabbed a radiator/fan cowl/shroud from the pick and pull and trimmed it fit around supercharger stuff.

 

[Mr. Alligator]

NOT supercharging (yet), but have the OEM plastic fan with all of the cracks that go with those plastic fans…

How does the performance of the metal fan compare to OEM plastic fans??? Better cooling? Lighter weight? What do you think?

 

[Blown]

I read that plastic is safest and a stock fan/clutch assembly is likely to perform best.

Older "Flex fans" with steel centers and rivits could become a problem over time with rust. The one I got is all stainless and there are more expensive all aluminum. There are some Nylon flex fans available.

A Flex Fan do flex,......................I read about a guy spinning one with debri into his radiator in dirty water crossing.

Any flex type fan which is run without a clutch, is spinning at the engine RPM and can be noisy idle. This slimmer fan is not as noisy as the thicker, larger flex fans. It probably doesn't move as much air as the larger fans.

That's all I got.

Now, I hope to hang meat, age it in the back of my rig with my killer refrigeration this summer. I got a shrouded 18 1/8" flex fan with electric pushers in front of a new A/C Condenser!

 

[Blown]

It's going to hit a high in the low 50's today. I hope to see the Temp. gauge and data log showing ECT sitting and not moving above the thermostat temp, 160 degrees or so. I bet I still see a little increase in ECT but hopefully there is a much quicker recovery after a 0-70 pull onto the freeway. . This should also help with lowering IAT.

This is ECT and IAT with a WOT pull just before X=1000. The IAT shoots up from 146 to 178 and ECT 6 or7 degrees. The ECT does not recover very fast. This is with 160 thermostat and 4000CFM of electric pusher fans. The 160 degree thermostat looks to be opening more like 166. I'll get a better warm-up and baseline temp. today and I'll post a similar graph later with the new Flex Fan.

With 18" flex fan, no Electrics: