The Camano Experience

Yeah, a pusher fan wouldn't be easy to do on Big Blue and the back side of the grille is already hacked up.  So if I want a fan for the A/C I'll have to go electric.  But that's a big IF given what Scott is learning.  

That’s interesting on the Honda Jim, I was checking fluids on my Xterra the other day and noticed it had an electric pusher fan on it.

grumpin wrote

That’s interesting on the Honda Jim, I was checking fluids on my Xterra the other day and noticed it had an electric pusher fan on it.

My 02 Durango has a pusher fan that comes on anytime the AC is on or anytime the temp gets high the computer will turn it on.
Dave ----

Haven't really done much to Camano lately besides put in gas..

I'd been looking for something vintage from the Marysville, WA Ford dealership where the truck was sold from just to have as a novelty: like a keychain, dash calendar, whatnot.

Finally got a hit


Once the weather warms up again I hope to pull the radiator, add a couple nutserts, and then get back to trying out the electric fan setup.

That’s cool!

I was going to tease you and ask, are you sure that’s not Marysville California? But I looked and the Ford dealership is in nearby Yuba City.

You just have to rain on my parade

I actually did a search as well prior to purchase and looks like there are a few Ford dealerships in  the various Marysvilles around the country. Best I could tell though WA was the most common one of that name (though it's now Kendall or something). So no way to really know which the frame came from but I am telling myself it's WA

Cool!  

Sounds good! As I was typing I thought the same thing and wondered how many Marysville there are in this country.

I’ve heard of Kendall Ford, I think they have several locations.

kramttocs wrote

Haven't really done much to Camano lately besides put in gas..

I'd been looking for something vintage from the Marysville, WA Ford dealership where the truck was sold from just to have as a novelty: like a keychain, dash calendar, whatnot.

Finally got a hit

That's really cool! I have an early to mid 90's vanity plate from the local Ford dealer that was on the front of the 1995 F150 my dad bought there in 1996. The dealer has changed names a few times since then, so it's cool to have the plate with the old name I remember it by as a kid, especially since half of my family worked at that Ford dealer when I was a kid.

I bought an owner's manual for my 2003 Ranger on Ebay a few years ago since it was missing when I bought the truck. There was a business card in the front of the protective cover, and it was from a salesman at Autoway Ford in Bradenton Florida, which is where the truck was sold new in 2003. The dealership is long gone, but it was really cool to find that card.

Those are both really neat to have and a crazy coincidence on the business card! It's little things like those that add to the fun of older vehicles.

One of these types of keychains from the selling dealership for any old truck is the Holy Grail of knick-knacks to me

HA! I currently live in Marysville WA

Time for an update on the electric fan setup. Bit of a lengthy post.
Been on the backburner for awhile due weather and other projects.

I had to read up on where I left off but at this point I have replaced both generic 80w fans with the Spal 12 inch paddle fans.

I bench tested the 80w and the Spal and the difference was huge. Took some cfm measurements on the 80w's but need to find them and take some on the Spals.

To accommodate the Spals I had to cut an inch wide ring from each hole in the shroud. This is as big of fans as this shroud could take. I do see that Champion has a shroud with two Spal 14s side by side (think they stick out past on each side a tad) and I can imagine that moves some air!

I also cut the vents out of the shroud as was discussed. I'd bolted a rectangular piece cut from a tractor tire tube for a flap over the bottom cutouts but after installing the shroud I noticed it would hit the transmission cooler line and never fully 'open' so removed it. That means the fans are going to be sucking some air in from the engine bay. I plan to install a flap over the top holes even if the bottom goes without.

Had found out last summer that I needed to installed nutserts in the bottom of the radiator to secure the shroud as there isn't an easy way to get a nut and bolt in there. Since I had to drain it all anyways, I flushed and switched to the ShellZone gold coolant.

Took it for a drive yesterday and it all worked really well.
Still the same 180 thermostat though I knocked the fan trigger temp to 195. Outside temp was 91.
Drove in and out of town so a mix of sitting at stoplights, going 30 and going 55. Left the a/c off and windows down so the fans weren't forced to always be on.

With the two Spal fans they drop the temp pretty quickly. I could hear them come on and off when stopping at the lights. Similar to when the mechanical fans kicks in.

I still don't know if it was the different shroud or the mechanical fan freewheeling but my gauge has always been between the O-R when on the highway (55+). Yesterday it stayed between the R-M. The fans kick on when it gets between the M-A.

Would like to get your all thoughts on this-
Prior to the drive I had it idling in the shop with no airflow. Let it warm up and the fans cycle a couple of times. Temp was staying at 182-192 and right in the fan on/off range as one would expect. Was happy with that so I kicked on the a/c to see how it would handle being stationary in hot weather. This caused the fans to kick on immediately as designed and the cabin air was nice and cold. Ok great. The odd thing is that the temp dropped into the low 70's . I had to leave to pickup my daughter so didn't see how low it would drop but with a 180 stat and the temp sensor being in the intake, I wouldn't have expected it to drop that low. Right? Shouldn't the thermostat have shut so the sensor should have been closer to 180?

One thing I've wanted to try since first entertaining the electric fans was how they might impact cooldown i.e heat soak.
When I got home I killed the truck but turned the key to run and started a timer.

0:00-00:10 Both fans came on
The gauge rose to almost the L and then started dropping
8:45 gauge dropped to center of A and the fans shut off (so they'd been running constant for almost 9min to combat the heat soak)
10:00 fans started again
11:00 fans stopped

I hung around the truck until the 20min mark at which the temp was in the 170s and dropping so turned the key off.

This seems like a big benefit when running into a store on a hot day. Should help not only with heat soak but also with keeping the fuel in the carb/lines cooler.

Since leaving the key in run isn't an option I ordered a multi-function relay that offers a delay-off feature.
Website is timers.shop and the stuff this relay can do is incredible.
My plan is to have the controller remain on for 20 minutes after ignition off and allow the fans to come on and off as needed.
This will be fed from the aux battery. I'd be much more hesitant to do this with a single battery.

I will post more about how that mult-function relay is wired up once I am able to do so. I have what I think is a neat solution

Spal fans the shroud:

Glad you are getting back to this.  And, glad the Spals appear to work.

Interested in that fancy relay, so I'll read up on it.  But are you bringing both fans on at the same time?  Have you thought about bringing one on first and then the other if needed?  And what about a PWM controller to bring them on softly and only as much as is needed?

On the temp dropping, you said "into the low 70's".  Did you mean the low "170's"?  I've been seeing Big Blue's temp drop as shown below, and then not get above the thermostat's rating of 180F even after quite a bit of driving.  So I don't think the thermostats close very tightly.

For the price and footprint, the relay really does sound pretty slick. I ended up going with the wifi option to make programming easier. There are a bosch style delay-on/delay-off relays out there but if my plans work out, this one is a better fit for my setup.

Yes, sorry, I meant 170s. I must have missed that or forgotten - are you now using a 180 stat vs the 195?
Having access to graphing like that makes me a little (ok very) jealous

Loved reading about the fans Scott. I have to install an electric on a new Champion rad in my '52. I haven't even read anything about them yet, but it's on my to-do list...probably in a couple weeks.

Yep, Scotty recommended the 180 vs the 195 so I changed.  And the logging ability is a geek's dream!

Scotty was the one that told me to drop mine to the 180 also

Hey Cory!
Hopefully some of my ramblings might be helpful.
Do you have a link to the Champion radiator you got? Interested to see what they offer as a compatible shroud.
I only have the two brands to compare and one wasn't even branded but I personally wouldn't go with anything but Spal fans. Their support has been great and the build quality of the fans I have is absolutely solid.
As for the controller I am using (not meaning the multi-function relay), the Davies Craig is really nice. Good price, simple, and can handle being in the engine bay. In response to Gary's post - it doesn't have the ability to control the speed of the fans and the only 'smarts' to it are 1) delaying the second fan by 10s so your electrical system isn't taking a big hit all at once and 2) being able to always be on when a/c is on (optional).
I've ran across a few others out there in my google/forum searches with the Flexalite 31163 and the Dakota Digital PAC-2800BT being the two I'd consider if doing it again.

As this was an experiment, price played a big factor but the IP66 rating of the Davies Craig was also important as it let me mount the controller on the core support meaning if I wanted to rip it all out and go back mechanical it would require very little effort. The Dakota Digital has the largest feature set but it also  has to be in the cabin. If the Mercury lends itself well to that, the DD is definitely worth a look.

kramttocs wrote

Hey Cory!
Hopefully some of my ramblings might be helpful.
Do you have a link to the Champion radiator you got? Interested to see what they offer as a compatible shroud.

I bought this fan (3 row version):

https://shop.championcooling.com/1948-1949-1950-1951-1952-Ford-F1-SKU-4252FD

They have this page for fans...

https://shop.championcooling.com/Shop/Fans

And this is the shroud page for my rad, and they show an upgrade to the SPAL fan too. Not sure what their standard fan offers are. Maybe you can tell by looking at them?

https://www.championradiators.com/Ford-Truck-radiator-shroud-1942-1952-FD

I have the rad already as I needed it for fitment purposes, but I haven't read a single word on fans yet until reading your experiences. To be honest, I had this plan to run the stock clutch fan, which turns out to have been wildly optimistic lol. That's why I haven't studied the fans side of the install yet.

I also have a second issue...I'm not 100% sure that I will even have enough room for a "pull fan" on the engine side of the radiator. I might have to install a push fan on the outside of the radiator. Looks like the SPAL option is a low profile, so that might be the way to go. I'm really hoping to be able to run a pull fan on the inside as a push fan might make installing an AC condenser difficult later on.

I also have no idea how the fans are controlled, but I did read a comment the other day that all of these fans come with their own thermal switch? The radiator doesn't have any ports for an immersed style temp sensor.

If you have any recommendations, I'm all ears. Looks like 16" is what they off to go with their shroud.

Thanks Cory. I'll look over that. Again, I don't have any expertise and limited experience but I am very interested in the topic so hopefully that counts for something

I found my video of the 80w fan. It maxed around 1400 cfm. This was installed in the truck and the passenger side fan.
Just did the test with the passenger side Spal. It topped at 2050.
Numbers looking even more significant when looking at the potential cfm of both fans: 2800 vs 4100

Wanted to show the clearance as well. Screen grab of the video so not a super clear picture but shows it well enough. Even if the belts, pulleys, and fan motor were actually aligned horizontally like the picture makes it appear, there is still plenty of room.

Clearance looks great!  And that air flow is impressive.