After cruising in a parade I started thinking about my cooling system. She stayed at or below 200f but it was only 70 degrees out side. Instead of putting in an electric fan to cool it, would installing a fan shroud be an improvement over what is stock?
In my 63 F-100, I was runnin a 302 with a 3 core rad. Long story short, I had a steel fan, it went flyin and ruined my shroud. I replaced the fan with a metal flex one and no shroud and it ran cooler than the stck steel one with a shroud. But, probably not the safest idea in the world....those things are sharp when they hit your fingers.
on my 53, i have a 283 chev but i still have the original radiator with one top and one bottom hole covered up. but i put on a summit racing steel 6 blade fan, moved it closer to the radiator with a spacer and put on just a chrome fan shroud from summit and i dont think that car ran that cool from the factory or when my grandma put that chevy engine in there originally so to answer your question, yes, fan shroud = big improvement i dont recomend the flex fan after seeing what it did to geno's 53's radiator when it came apart...
Hehe, wait till you've seen a flex fan have a chew on a hood! Never pretty . They are nasty things that by the very nature of the "flexing" work harden around the riveted area on the blades and then eventually break . I have seen several fail , and you could not pay me enough money to run one on one of my own vehicles. Shroud is a good idea as long as your fan is positioned correctly in it . Fan should sit just in side the opening/mouth of the shroud, if running no shroud fan should sit 1" to 1.5" off the radiator.
Ford had a huge recall on fans in the mid/late 70s, I can't remember the program numbers but it was mostly for full size cars and medium duty trucks & busses. Saw vehicles that blades had come off and went thru radiators, shrouds, & hoods.
Some of you Ford engined guys may benefit by installing a 7 blade A/C fan, with or without a viscous clutch.
I also had problems with a 58 Ford Skyliner Retractable with a 352 that was rebuilt completly stock and all the water p***ages cleaned out when rebuilt. The radiator was stock and and recored, 180 degree thermostat, New waterpump (not rebuilt), 8lb radiator cap. It would run at cruising speeds and normal driving right at 180 degrees. No shroud as they didn't come with one from the factory. But everytime we would do a parade on a warm day it would start to run hot. So I finally replaced the original metal 4 blade fan with an aftermarket metal 6 or 7 blade fan (I can't remember which now) made for trailer towing. It had a steel hub with stainless blades and it never ran hot again even in 100 degree plus heat in stopped or slow traffic. The only thing that was bad about the stainlees blades was that they were very very sharp on the edges so I sanded the sharp edges smooth. I put over 70,000 miles on it over about 10 years and never had a heating problem again. We also ran them on stock cars running up to 6,500 rpm's and never had one come apart. But we did try the flex-o-lite fans (Fibergl***) on race cars and did have them come apart so I would not use one of those again if you are going to be winding it up. Make sure the fan is about 1- 1.5 inches from the radiator just like the factory had them. and the timming is set right.
I have one from an early Mustang that I am going to be using with a Mustang radiator . You can always get the chrome ones that pretty much fit any radiator that you get from Speedway in their Street Rods book . they are easy to use . Just a big U shaped piece of metal . Jim
Jim, the u shape shroud looks like the simplest solution. Though Geno's yard art shroud is pretty cool.
im running a blow thru or pusher electric fan. not quite the look you are probably going for, and i know a puller elec fan works better or is more preferred, but between the 302, ac and alt., there wasnt any room left for a mech fan let alone a shroud.
I built the shroud for the '53 out of a hunk of 18 guage. Check out the pic in my album. Pretty easy to do! It works great
The Jalopy Journal
