Bead Blasting Bliss

[88-diamondblue]

My weekend project was to clean up my fan and have the alternator rebuilt. It came out just like the previous threads have said. It took longer to get the tools together than to get the fan out. The fan came off with no problems. The alternator needed to be dropped on two boards and let gravity do its work. Two drops to get the alternator on the rags. I went to the alternator shop who rebuilt the unit 10 years ago. They checked the brushes and looked at it and said it looked good. No alternator rebuild this time. Here are a few pictures of the job and the results of bead blasting the fan and housing. Now I'm trying to decide what color to do the housing and whether to polish the fan. Possibly silver powder coat on the housing and a polished fan with silver powder coat fan center. Suggestions welcome.

Getting started


Before pic


No Oil on the top side

Final product

[OZCarrera3]

Man, I can't believe how clean your engine is behind the fan - beautiful!

As for the colour of the fan and housing, what about powder coating the housing silver and the fan body colour (or as close to as possible)? That way it'll sort reflect the look of your Fuchs!

[88-diamondblue]

Sheldon

I had thought about doing a polished center and body colored housing since I have a set of wheels that will be polished with the diamond blue centers maybe with polished paddles. I like the idea of the fan being body colored. Thanks for the idea.

[buster73]

The fan and fan housing castings are quite porous, so powder coating and painting can be a bit tricky to avoid blistering. My powder coater refuses to coat Porsche fans anymore as he had too many complaints. Also the leading edges of the fan will sooner or later show some abrasion marks (powder coating will hold up better than paint). After bead blasting I gave my fan a good coat of carnauba wax. Attached picture shows the fan after two years. Looks still nice and I'll give it a new coat of wax soon.