Polising the Fan

Hi!
I want to polish the fan of the engine. Does anyone know if I have to apply a clear on it to avoid tarnishing again. Thanks
Daniel

Depends on what fan part you mean.

The fan itself is magnesium and will corrode almost immediately (one the way back from the blasters!!). After loads of scare stories about primers / isolators etc I simply polished the blasted part with wire wool and then sprayed it with an automotive lacquer - no problems with either keying or corrosion.

The fan housing itself responds well to polishing (although I would recommend that you get it at least 'started off' professionally or you're in for a long job) and I have applied nothing here, preferring to polish as necessary.

Finished job looks neat without being too OTT. If I can lay my hands on a digital camera I'll try and post some pics.

Roy M

Hi Roy,
Thanks for the reply. I'm having the complete fan and hosing done. It will be done professionally. They polished a part of it, and it looked very nice.

I am thinking of starting a support group for us guys who find a need to polish their fans. Find it at www.getalife.com

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Robert Stoll
83 SC
83 944

Robert

I suppose it depends on whether you polish when you can't drive or drive when you can't polish! - I did mine whilst waiting for an alternator repair!

Roy

You may still be ok Roy, but I suddenly had the urge to polish my brake rotors last weekend. Now that's sick!

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Robert Stoll
83 SC
83 944

I'm not sure it's true that the fan is magnesium. I believe it's aluminum with a little magnesium alloyed within it, and I was told by a highly regarded Porsche professional--most of you would know his name, but it's not my place to mention it--that part of the problem with keeping fan and housing polished is that these are pressure-casts parts of widely varying quality, depending on the phase of the moon, the quantity of last night's beer and the quality of the supplier's metal, etc. etc., and that they often are full of microscopic pits. The slightest bit of contaminent in those pits immediately begins corrosion no matter what you've coated the metal with. I scrupulously polished my fan and housing with everything from a buffing wheel to jeweler's rouge, coated it with a rock-hard POR-15 alloy-wheel coating, put them in the attic while I continued the restoration of the car, and six months later they looked like scheiss under the coating. I have since removed the coating with aircraft stripper, re-polished them and simply carnuba-waxed them, which I'm sure will last about one week once the fan begins to turn in anger. What I've heard from knowledgeable people I've queried re. what to do is that they've tried everything--anodizing, powder-coating, high-temp-heat painting, polishing, lacquering, spraying with Krylon, etc.--and everything is pretty temporary. And there's nothing uglier than a museum-quality fan painted gloss Guards Red when the paint starts eroding off the tips when they spin at a million miles an hour through dust, dirt, sand, Coors cans and everything else that gets sucked through that cooling-air intake. I'm probably gonna keep polishing my fan by hand forever--hey, what else do I have to do?--but I suspect the most realistic course would be to sandblast the pieces to the flat gray consistency of the units you'd see on a serious racecar as opposed to the cuties on a Q-Tip special.

Stephan Wilkinson

Stephan,

I'm not sure what year car/engine you are talking about, but ALL of the early 1.3:1 ratio fans are a magnesium alloy of about 90% Mg/8% Al/2% trace elements such as Silicon, etc. Aluminum oxide is white and anything with a majority of Al is whitish/chalky-looking when oxidized, whereas a majority of Mg, which oxidizes grayish-black ... looks dark gray and 'sooty' when corroded ... and Magnesium oxidizes, being much more chemically active than Aluminum, at a rate at least ten times faster than Aluminum!!!

I don't know personally what the later 1.8:1 ratio fans are made of, but they have been described to me as appearing just like the early fans when oxidized. That would imply high Magnesium content, too!

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Warren Hall
1973 911S Targa

Give your fan to Tom if you really want a good job done on. Perhaps you've seen his post on his floor jack.
http://www.pelicanparts.com/ultimate/Forum3/HTML/005216.html
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Paul
78SC Targa

I had a firm belief (can't remember where from) that my fan (88 Carrera) was magnesium and the first thing my blaster said without prompting was that it was magnesium.

Blasting, Wire wool polishing, and clear lacquer worked fine for me and has been on the engine in operation for about four months with no great level of deterioration.

By the way Robert I am having problems accessing your link

Roy M

Thanks Roy, I will take your advice for the fan. You weren't able to access his site because he is too busy polishing his brakes!!!
Daniel

And those babys are lookin' goooood!

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Robert Stoll
83 SC
83 944

Oh Paul, You MUST be new to the board !

If you think the jack was my first foray into detailing your wrong. Here is a pic of the engine in my 74. You will be seeing more of this as time goes on.

Tom Sharpes
90 C2 Targa
http://members.rennlist.com/myc2

Tom - Your engine is amazing ! Has it ever been used - it looks like it has been kept in a glass box all its life? Absolutely incredible. It is a work of art.

James

Now I understand:
THATS the engine from THE guy with THAT Jack!

Oh my god-I will never have so much time before I retire...

Jens

Tom,
Damn that looks good! Now I'm inspired to spend MORE MONEY!

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Anthony Kram
77 Targa

Thanks for the comments !

Yes the engine was used - quite a lot actually. All of that was painted with heat paint and stood up vey well to all of the elements. There is a complete section of my web site dedicated to this engine detailing at http://members.rennlist.com/5150targa

It did not take that long (about a week of evenings) and the engine was not removed to do it. I did have to remove the fan & alt but that was not as bad as I thought it would be.

I have a number of other projects that I still have to do write ups on and get into Wayne fo the PP tech article site. They include changing the gauge faces, lowering and installing spring preches, installing a rear wing on a C2 and the airbox mod.

I had a ball doing all of the work on the 74. I sold it in Oct to buy my 90 C2. There aren't as many things to be done on the C2, but I will always remember the evenings in the garage cussing and screaming - I mean enjoying working on the car.




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Tom Sharpes
90 C2 Targa
http://members.rennlist.com/myc2

Nice Job Tom. I removed the engine from the car to repaint the engine bay, and at the same time repaint the engine. I was inspired by your project. But my fan and the housing will be polish.
Daniel