Scary stuff earlier today with my 47 chevy. Felt like the carbs float got stuck car was running real rough. opened the hood to take a look hear a loud clunk clunk clunk sounded like inside the valve cover so lucky i put my head down to take a closer listen and whaaaaam hit square in the shoulder with a fan blade. got a big welt in a straight line and an achey shoulder and a few little cuts but this coulda been a lot worse if i got hit in the face with it or hot with the end with a point on it. . be careful out there guys we are messing with 60 year old stuff!! now the technical part will this cause the car to vibrate like fuck like its gonna come apart at the seams?
Usually it is the result of a bent blade being straightened which either made a tiny unoticeable crack which then became the weak point on a fast rotating assembly or put the fan blade in a wobble posistion which worked the steel and...sooner or later... KA-CHING.
Lost a fan blade on a 302 many years ago.Car was almost undrivable due to the vibration.O.K. once I relaced the fan.
Mate of mine had this happen at the Sins show earlier this year. She runs a 216 straight 6. The engine went off with a bang and sounded horrendous, after investigation it turns out that one of the fan blades had sheared off and had left the engine bay via the six inch slot that it cut in the inner fender panel. You are dead right, you are one lucky guy. Paul.
2 carbs and dual exhaust on the 216 fans been on there for 3 years i never straightend a blade but who knows what coulda happened before i had it . yah the vibration was horrible thought the engine was gonna fall out it was that bad
Friend had an SS396 Elky back in the 70's. At about 6000 rpm the fan came apart and went through the hood and flew so far it disappeared. The hole was about 2" by 12" and just shredded the metal. If that had been someones arm or head
You got an angel on your shoulder. I had a 55 chevy that just up and quit running while I was driving. Pulled it to the side of the road and started to lift the hood and the battery blew up. Contaminated the whole engine bay with acid. If I had been a little faster with the hood it would have got me also. I like angels.
had a water pump shaft snap off, i was leaning in over the drivers fender setting the max advance, the owner was holding the engine at 4000 rpm's, closed the hood and the owner gave her a good jab, the brand new 7 blade stainless flex fan chewed itself a hole in the inner fender right where i was 30 seconds before that, my guess is if you drive the car with a fan blade snaped off you going to screw up your water pump bearing.
we shall see if the bearing is screwed up drove it less then a mile home . hope its not the water pumps for those bastards are expensive..
Fortunately you were not injured too seriously. I wonder if I would rather have a hit on the shoulder or have to fix extensive damage to the car. ( I just might opt for the hit on the shoulder)
when something is spinning like a fan it is never a good idea to align yourself with the area where the parts will go flying in the event of some sort of failure. cutoff wheels on your grinders, stone wheels on your bench grinder.... anything that spins. am I the only one who thinks this way?
yah ill stick with the achey shoulder instead of fixing that hood. im usually that way 49ratfink but i never expected a fan to let go at 600 rpm. well that sure changed my mind fast haha
^^^ That is why when on the rare occasions I do have to ride a prop plane, I don't sit in the seat next to the blades. I don't care if they never come off. I don't want to be the one to find out the hard way they do when something happens,
When I was a kid growing up my dad had a '52 F1 as a shop truck. I don't remember the exact details leading up to it but he lost a blade off the fan and it went up and through the hood. He never fixed the tear in the hood. It sure started a lot of conversations over the years. Thor
My friends father was a mechanic (now retired), he was working under the hood of a customer car when one of the GM flex-fans came apart, he now has a 7 in scar across his neck from the flying blade. Very lucky man to be alive.
One thing I forgot to mention, my mate removed the adjacent fan blade which evened the fan up again and it ran smooth, the bearing was totalled by then but it did run pretty good, still kept cool and she got back from Belgium to the uk no problems. Paul.
Those old fan blades are known to develop cracks at exactly that same spot and eventually break off... Happened to me 11 years ago. A fan blade broke off while city driving, luckily the day after a long freeway trip out in nowhere-land with no cell phone. Cut the lower radiator hose, hit the inner fender with a bang as loud as a rifle shot, but no other damage. I got rid of those inefficient old fans on both my daily rides and mounted low-profile flex fans, which move a lot more air and are much lighter. .... and never break !
damn, i annialated my hand on a fan blade, spent 4 hours in the ER getting the wounds cleaned, stitched , and X Rayed. I got really lucky, missed all the tendons and didn't break anything. bloody mess though... Count your lucky starts man, close call!
have a friend that it happened too...there was only one inch of skin holding his arm on...they got it back together but he cant raise it over his head and lost alot of his muscle
i had a waterpump shaft break when i was bangin gears in my big block powered bus trashed the radiator and hose but not much else it looked preaty cool as it went down the road my radiator did not
My friends brother got hit with a fan blade that broke off while doing the same thing you were doing, it hit him in the neck. They buried him. You are sooooo lucky.
About 40 years ago in Brighton, Ontario a woman in the stands at a stock car race was killed when one of the stock cars had a fan blade fly off.
I got lucky when mine went. I felt the vibration and shut it down. I thought I did something horrible to the motor so I shut it down and coasted into a parking lot. I opened the hood to check the oil, it looked ok. Luckily I propped the flashlight on the rad support. It fell. I reached down into the shroud to get it and cut my hand a bit. That's when I saw the blade in there. It was hanging by a thread. I tore it off and was able to slowly drive a mile to a buddy's place. The frickin' ashtray rattled right out of the dash on the way. After I put the new fan in the vibration was gone. I also had this happen with one of those huge 30" shop fans at my old job. WOW! that'll wake you up. You think a car fan vibrates you ought to witness that mayhem. Not pretty.
i was riding in a 70 chevy PU about 75 mph when a blade broke off.went through the hood .made a hell of a noise and ripped the hood open about 10''
same thing happened to the fan with my fleetline the other day, cruising on the highwat then BAM!! i thought i punched a hole in my block with a rod, and the piece that fell off sounded like a a chunk of iron bouncing off the floor of my car and the road. i wrote the engine off till i read this thread, went outside and sure enough, im missing a fan blade. i guess ill keep this babbit pounder for a little while longer.
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