Changed serpent-time belt and...

... lost patience and pulled rad shroud and fan clutch, '98 4.0. did idler pulley at same time, then I used a mapp gas torch to heat the blade of a utility knife blade and very neatly split the shroud horizontally. Plan on making it a two-piece entity.

Anyways, ADD kicked it and decide to reinstall fan clutch until tomorrow and then fabricate connection brackets for the now two piece shroud, also tomorrow. Tonite I instead flushed ps pump twice.

Point is, without the shroud, there's no excess noise, and the temp gauge dropped between 3-5 degrees, I'm 99% sure, I swear. Is this right?

There's no beneath motor shroud, in the middle of finding material to make one. Could that be contributing to the cooling sensation I've stumbled upon? Plan on painting the tips of the blade with day-glo orange, or make some sort of screen shield on top. :sunshine: or yellow, or maybe even White-Out darnit...

Any hypotheses?!?

If you remove the bottom center picece instead it turns into an upside down U, ya just want to leave the bottom tabs. I broke mine accidently trying to 'finesses' it past the inplace fan, didn't work, cracked it in just the right spot. Result is the bottom solid piece is no longer there. Still need to replace the original radiator, have had a new one in the shed for almost a year now. Problem with NO shroud is the air does not get pulled evenly, the shroud channels the air thru the rad.

Why then sudden IMHO the drop in temp?!?

Granted it's about 55* here in ny, but if idle long enough I've always hit 207-210. Not this time though

Rich, you really posted 8500ish times?!?

mikeny59 said:

Why then sudden IMHO the drop in temp?!?

Granted it's about 55* here in ny, but if idle long enough I've always hit 207-210. Not this time though

Rich, you really posted 8500ish times?!?

Click to expand...

I've been on this board in all it's forms since 97....at least we got no more ghost..

As for the temp drop, dunno, mine went up a tad, ~5deg, but I also did a new water pump, tstat, hoses, pressure cap, belt and idlers at the same time.

mikeny59 said:

Rich, you really posted 8500ish times?!?

Click to expand...

That's why his new rad is still in the shed.

Again, the weirdest thing, temp I know dropped, absolutely no noise. Don't have one of those NAPA tension gauges (plan on getting one) but using the 90* deflection method, I've retightened belt three times over about the last twenty miles. Even wire-wheeled the paint off of the idler pully. PS pump pully felt fine, just wish I can get a pn on the sealed bearing and replace as preventive maintainence.

Incidentally, PS pump loves M1 for 114k miles, as does the AW4, even with all the funky shifting it does w/31's and 3.55's :clap:

Need to throw the a/c on for a bit and see what happens, may induce a need to tighten more. Those Gatorbacks rule, though.

Wow, '97. So have I, dissappeared for a few years though.

Already White-Outed tips of blades, no lie...:wow:

The thermostat could be stuck open.

The best way to modify the fan shroud is to cut a 3/4" deep piece out of the lower portion of the shroud, the width of the fan pulley. This way the shroud will easily slide out past the pulley. The small amount of plastic that's removed will not appreciably affect the airflow.

Mike, I've no idea why the temp went down with the shroud removal. As far as I know, that's directly opposite to what should have happened. That's indeed a mystery......

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm not getting heat, it's just the same impressive proportion of temp drop when I did the water pump/fan clutch/oem thermostat/waterwetter/back flush at once/belt about two years ago Very noticable.

Wish I thought of narrowing shroud before heat-knifed it in half, great idea. Think I'll narrow it to, not comfortable with those blades whizzing by, and plan to install probably a cfs radiator before I drive down to fl. this christmas.

Thanks, will keep you informed.