Minor improvements or major blasphemies ? You decide

[workaholic_ro]

I will not insist on detailed explanations, the procedures are well known and the pictures hopefully are self explanatory. If any one needs to clarify some specific detail, feel free to ask.


It all started when....




As you all know the 75/ZT radiator fan is expensive and not very reliable. Choices:
1 - an arm and a leg for a new fan, motor and cowl from rimmer, xpart or others.
2 - eBay hunt for used or new, but I need the car for a little vacation, I can't wait too much for shipping.
3 - local Rover breakers (believe it or not there are a lot of them, breaking cars in good working condition, it is so sad that these became more valuable dead than alive ); unpleasant surprise, they ask almost as much as for new parts.
4 - a similar fan from a donor and the cowling rebuilt.
Decided for (4) and after a half an hour of intensive investigation picked the 300W Mondeo (petrol) radiator fan. Paid 15 Euro for a used one, including the resistor. Not as big and strong as the original one but quieter by far and more reliable as I have been informed.

Side by side with a potential donor:



Forgot to take a pic before stripping it, here is a borrowed one from eBay:



The fan installed to the original cowling:





The orange stuff is polyurethane rubber (just because I have it), use your imagination for any other material that can help to fit the fan, it is about 40 cm in diameter instead 46 and 100watt less powerful.
Despite all my fears it all worked perfectly even on bad roads in the mountains, in low gears and above 30 Celsius outside temperature.

BTW, these can be fixed too with a soldering iron and 4mm screws to replace the broken bits.



Back to its place:




Two brackets to place the resistor in an accessible place. Now I can replace it easily, removing the front grille only; and this resistor has a connector.






Now that I'm here anyway I can take care of the shannon pipe, easy to guess that it was disintegrated like all of them after a few years. Another smart "investment", 80 mm flexible aluminium tube and two steel collars, less than 10 Euro.




It produces a a low animal growl, I like it, it's not too loud.

Last but not least, I have found the T-junction of the crankcase breather in place, but broken. Polyurethane again...and this will never fail.




*** end of story ***

[Phil]

Nice! Well done!

[ceedy]

Well done,

I've the 2 speed Bosch Motor from a Vx in my CDti .. works very well .


Chris

[Bernard LPG]

I like this kind of fix, low cost!

Were there any wiring difficulties? You only mention the resistor.

[Number 6]

Good work that man

[T-Cut]

Interesting. Does the fan actually run clockwise as you view it from the front? Most fans of that design would run anticlockwise as mounted here.

TC

[workaholic_ro]

Originally Posted by Bernard LPG

I like this kind of fix, low cost!

Were there any wiring difficulties? You only mention the resistor.

The fan motor and the resistor are wired the same way as the original Rover parts, I kept all the other components as they are. The only modification was to add longer wires to the resistor in order to install it in an accessible place.

[workaholic_ro]

Originally Posted by T-Cut

Interesting. Does the fan actually run clockwise as you view it from the front? Most fans of that design would run anticlockwise as mounted here.

TC

Easy to figure out what would happen if not, the fan generated air current "fighting" with the air current coming from outside.
On a Mondeo the fan is installed with the same orientation in relation to the car, but behind the radiator. Yes, it runs clockwise as you view it from the front. (I am not that stupid )


On most curved fan or propeller (rational) designs, the convex part goes first and not the blades tips. Random selection assisted by google:








There are exceptions, though. Noisy exceptions ?

[FrenchMike]

Nice work,Fidel


Mike