> ANYONE HAVE ADVICE ON AN ELECTRIC COOLING FAN FOR A TR3? LIKE WHO
> MAKES ONE,
> SHOULD IT PUSH OR PULL, WILL IT WORK ON POSITIVE GROUND.
I've used a Hayden for many years on a daily-driven TR3A and I'm very happy
with it. Found it on sale at Pep Boys. Mounted as a puller, since I'm
convinced that pushers interfere with normal air flow at speed, which means
the original fan had to go. The fan will work fine on positive ground
(reverse the leads to get the correct rotation).
However, the fan draws a good deal of current, which the original generator
cannot supply if the headlights are on. If you're going to drive at night
in warm weather, you'll probably need an alternator to power the fan, which
generally means a negative ground conversion. Don't worry, it's easy to
convert ... just swap the connections to the battery, ammeter and ignition
coil. All other stock TR3A components don't care about polarity.
One caution my local radiator guy gave me : when pushing the plastic posts
through the radiator fins, try to position them so they don't touch a tube.
Otherwise they may rub through the tube over time, and cause a leak.
Alternative of course is to have him install some brackets on the radiator
frame, but he said it wasn't worth the effort, the plastic posts work fine
if you keep them away from the tubes.
There's also a concern that the original fan (and it's rubber mounts) acted
as a harmonic dampener. Might be a problem if you run over 5k rpm for any
length of time. But in 20+ years & probably 200k miles without an original
fan, I've never broken a crank. Did have some trouble keeping the pulley
hub on the crank, but Loctite solved that problem.
Randall
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