Replaced fan and shroud - learned a few things

[kyngfish]

Just figured I’d post this in case it helped anyone. I’ve been noticing some bubbles on my fan and sure enough - about a month ago I saw one of the blades had a piece missing. I ordered a new fan and started taking it apart and noticed a few things.

1. It wasn’t just my fan. The shroud had cracked near the mounting points at the top and had pulled slightly downward. So I ordered a shroud.

2. The fan and shroud finishing / casting looked like ****. I can see why others get it refinished at a machinist. I just wanted my car back on the road so I sanded down a few high points that were rubbing and just mounted it.

3. I had a minor internal debate about rebuilding the alternator but chose not to do it because the forum said it should last longer than the miles I had it. I put it all back together and drove it a week. Sure enough. Alternator light started coming on at idle. So here it comes apart again.

4. Got it rebuilt at a local shop for like 200 bucks. They did a great job. Put it all back together for a second time. I effing hate wiring and reconnecting the alternator shroud.

5. Fan making a weird noise like it’s rubbing again. Check the belt and it feels tight. The belt is the right size and I have the max shims inside the pulley so I figured I overtightened or something. Loosened it slightly and drove off. A few miles down the road my belt explodes.

6. After calling a few auto parts shop and looking through the forums I can’t get a straight answer about the belt size. Forum says I need 710mm which is what I had before. Oreillys says I need 732mm. But they need to order it and it will take a week. Advanced has a few different sizes in stock. Clearly my belt was tight. FLAPs apparently didn’t understand metric so I got it in inches instead. Went from ~28 inches to ~29 inches. Or roughly what oreillys recommended

Belt works perfectly. It sounds like when my shroud broke and pulled slightly off the screw mount it bent slightly downward. Meaning I needed a shorter belt. Then with the new shroud - my older smaller belt probably accelerated failure in my already old alternator. With a rebuilt alternator the issue was worse and my belt fried itself.

So yeah. Not sure why my car in particular needs a longer belt than the threads I saw on the forum but there you go. Happy motoring yall.

[GH85Carrera]

When I had my fan and housing off to replace the alternator I had it ceracoated. It look better and it will not corroded like raw magnesium will.

[GH85Carrera]

Whoops, the old photo was the before. Here is the after photo.

[kyngfish]

looks great!