Where is it (pics and description) and how do I see if still good!!

 

Its between the fan and the pulley behind it.

Check to see if the fan spins freely when the motor is warm and when its cold. Compare the two. When its warm it should be difficult to spin freely.

 

so if the fan clutch is good and doesn't need replacement when the engine is warm it should be difficult to spin freely and and when the engine is cool it should be easy to spin freely?? so if it needs to be replaced what should the fan do when its cool and what should it do when its warm?? thanks !

 

The fan clutch. The small unit on the left is the XJ fan clutch....the big one was just an experiment....XJ fan is too small to make the big clutch "freewheel".

 

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The spin test is weak/unreliable at best.....if unsure how old the fan clutch is, just replace it ($35). Their performance slowly degrades with age/miles.

 

thats the bigger one bolted up in the picture correct

 

Usallay when they start to go bad the noise at start up will get louder and louder as the fan clucth gets worse and worse.

 

No, when it cold it hard to spin to. When you start your engine you should hear your fan blow, realy hear it, then after 2-5 min the fan slows down until the water in the radiator get hot and it speed up. But the "oil" in the fan clutch need som heat to function.

 

cold easy to spin -hot hard to spin.

 

Wow.

 

You may have that backwards.

As the motor heats up shouldnt the clutch stop allowing any slippage? So when the motor is cold its easy to spin the fan freely. That way when the fan pulley spins the fan doesn't spin as fast.

When the motor heats up, the clutch stops letting any slip, forcing the fan to spin with the rest of the motor, effectively pulling the air through the radiator.

 

......or one seldom hears any noise (fan roar) and posts a thread titled "overheating in traffic". The FSM says something about hearing fan roar at cold start being normal. The roar should dissipate on acceleration unless motor is toasty.

 

Yep, from a Caprice 9C1 cop car.....quickly removed it.

 

......at least we didn't get the "stick the broomstick in it" test again.