See all that nice extra working room available with electric fan instead of clutch fan??
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Originally Posted by bennelson
So you remove the fan blade from the pulley, that way the pulley still spins and you still use the same length belt?
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Yup. On my car there were four studs mounted on front of water pump. Pulley was slid on first, and the fan clutch base was slid on in front of that. Remove the four small nuts holding fan base onto the pulley and it comes off. Put the nuts back on to hold the pulley onto front of pump. One stud worked loose from the end of pump shaft. Bit of a pain getting it all back together again. So be gentle on the nuts when you loosen. Of course your GM thing might be a bit different but I'm sure the basic idea is the same.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bennelson
You get better fuel economy because there is less resistance from not having the fan pushing the air?
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Exactly. True that there's a temperature-driven clutch between the fan and it's drive pulley. But you can see that it spins all the time, just spins faster when things get hot. So your mpg or power gain comes from not having to spin it and push air all the time.
I found that on open roads with oem grill, I was fine under any conditions even in the hottest weather. Anything 30 mph and up was fine due to the airflow over the radiator. Idling, stop and go traffic will need an electric fan or something to provide cooling. It's possible to drive without that need if you can kill the engine when in those situations. Any regular traffic light, I think you can get by without a fan because you're not stopped very long.
With a grill block you might find it getting warmer more often. At about 65 deg. with the grill panel you see in my avatar, the fan did come on when on any kind of mild upgrade Interstate. Downhill it would cool off and the fan would switch off. That opening is only about 70 sq. inches, about half the stock grill opening area. I'm currently making a new one with 100 sq. inches opening for warm weather use.