ron56
- Reaction score
- 34
- Thunderbird Year
- 1956
In trying to prep my car for a 1 1/2 hour parade in 95 degrees, I looked into moving my fan to a position 1/4 inch outside of the fan shroud. It was currently about 1/4 inch behind the shroud. I started by mounting a anemometer in the middle of the grill to get a baseline of my current air flow through the radiator. I set the engine after warm up to run at 600 rpm in gear. This setting resulted in a very stable running engine. I then removed the one inch fan spacer and replaced it with a 1/2 inch spacer. I couldn't go more because the fan would interfere with the power steering and the engine damper but it did move the fan to around 1/4 inch out. I tried a few things in the process. First I couldn't see any change by popping the hood open but no question you could feel a lot of heat coming through the gap. The gain by moving the fan was right at 10% greater air flow but almost no change if I ran the engine in park with the rpm going to 800. Should be interesting to see if I can go for 1 1/2 hours at idle without over heating. As a back up position I can turn on the heater and run the blower motor on high. I have most of the mods that I know about such as a 6 blade fan, the high volume water pump, the small water pump pulley, aluminum radiator, Chris Ames spacer, and the large thermostat. With these mods the car stays at no greater than 190 going uphill or 75 on the freeway. I have had it idle for around one hour but the gauge was slowly rising to around half way. Just not sure what is going to happen with a extra 1/2 hour at idle speeds in our heat wave.
The back story on why I'm in the parade you might find interesting. I was at a local car show and a man came up to me and asked if I could drive a 80 year old lady in my bird in the town parade. It turns out when she was young her dad owned a radio station here in Salt Lake City and the dad had a relationship with the Beach Boys as they would come to Utah quite often and come to his station. One time he was driving them back to the airport and mention that he had to take his t-bird away from his daughter because she told him she was going to the U of U to study but instead went to the local hamburger drive in to hangout with her friends. On their flight home they wrote our now iconic T-Bird song. (Fun Fun Fun) One thing according to a news paper account I read her dad's t-bird was really a early 1960 model. I guess they couldn't find a convertible of that vintage so enter my 1956.
The back story on why I'm in the parade you might find interesting. I was at a local car show and a man came up to me and asked if I could drive a 80 year old lady in my bird in the town parade. It turns out when she was young her dad owned a radio station here in Salt Lake City and the dad had a relationship with the Beach Boys as they would come to Utah quite often and come to his station. One time he was driving them back to the airport and mention that he had to take his t-bird away from his daughter because she told him she was going to the U of U to study but instead went to the local hamburger drive in to hangout with her friends. On their flight home they wrote our now iconic T-Bird song. (Fun Fun Fun) One thing according to a news paper account I read her dad's t-bird was really a early 1960 model. I guess they couldn't find a convertible of that vintage so enter my 1956.
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