Cooling fan: Clutch or Direct Drive?

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Cooling fan: Clutch or Direct Drive?

Postby ArtBee » Sat Aug 01, 2015 12:50 am

My 93 D250 has a clutch fan. My 92 W350 Dually cab/chassis "Parts truck" has a direct drive fan. I've been doing a lot of trailer towing this year (6.5K loads including trailer) and my destination is five mountain passes away. Have been experiencing near boiling over temperatures when its hot outside ... so I've been doing my towing at night when its cooler outside, which helps but it still gets pretty warm. Truck has never had cooling issues when not hauling.

Question is ... would I be better off switching the clutch fan to a direct drive fan for better cooling when towing a load. The W350 is a work horse and it has one on it.

Thanks
Art
1993 W350, 1991 D250 (non IC), 1969 Plymouth GTX, 1961 Chrysler 300G, 1966 Chev BelAir
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Re: Cooling fan: Clutch or Direct Drive?

Postby Tacoclaw » Sat Aug 01, 2015 6:57 am

The only real downfall to them is decreased mileage, if you think the trade off is worth it then go for it.
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Re: Cooling fan: Clutch or Direct Drive?

Postby ArtBee » Sat Aug 01, 2015 11:47 am

Thank you Tacoclaw for your reply. I cant see it changing the fuel mileage a hugh amount. So you agree that the solid fan will pull more air then? The surface area of the solid looks smaller than the clutch one, but I figured that with it being fixed that it would work better ... and I'm sure its louder. There had to be a reason why the chose it for the stouter truck.

Thanks again!
1993 W350, 1991 D250 (non IC), 1969 Plymouth GTX, 1961 Chrysler 300G, 1966 Chev BelAir
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Re: Cooling fan: Clutch or Direct Drive?

Postby thrashingcows » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:23 pm

I have never seen a OEM solid fan set-up...or even heard of one. Would love to see a pic of the set-up.

The clutch fan assembly, if working properly, should have 3 settings. 1st is general light duty cooling, 2nd is heavy duty cooling, and 3rd is severe duty cooling. When that severe duty kicks in it should sound like a jet taking off! My guess is that the clutch fan assembly is not working properly....you should have no problems with cooling with a properly functioning clutch fan assembly.
1984/93 Dodge Crewcab, W350, 1 Ton SRW, long box, 330K Km's, M&H spacer, 366 spring, fuel pin to deep side, 14cm housing, Piston LP, PS IC, Isspro Boost, Pyro and tach, NV4500, 29 spline NP205, 3.54's.


Check out the build....http://www.dieseltruckresource.com/dev/ ... 05923.html
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Re: Cooling fan: Clutch or Direct Drive?

Postby Sutter1stgen » Mon Sep 07, 2015 9:30 pm

thrashingcows wrote:I have never seen a OEM solid fan set-up...or even heard of one. Would love to see a pic of the set-up.

The clutch fan assembly, if working properly, should have 3 settings. 1st is general light duty cooling, 2nd is heavy duty cooling, and 3rd is severe duty cooling. When that severe duty kicks in it should sound like a jet taking off! My guess is that the clutch fan assembly is not working properly....you should have no problems with cooling with a properly functioning clutch fan assembly.


My truck always ran warm in the guage. I figured that mine read differently (as some of my friends trucks do), and didnt think twice about it. Then I realized I hadn't heard the fan clutch kick in in a few years, as I was doing little towing. Changed out the clutch and I have a hard time getting the truck even warmed up.

If your fan clutch is working properly I would check your cooling stack for cleanliness. Sometimes a good pressure washing of the condenser, intercooler, and radiator is needed.
Eric

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Re: Cooling fan: Clutch or Direct Drive?

Postby jethro » Mon Sep 07, 2015 10:51 pm

What about a "flex-fan" that has 6 huge fiberglass blades. Used to have one on an old e-350 that had a huge slow rear end.
(10 mpg loaded or empty!) It cooled much better with the big flex fan. I think I saw them in the current NAPA catalog.
Not sure how to couple it up-----

Tim
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