Removing radiator fans for refinishing

If its a euro and no ac ( I don't think they had ac) then there is no condensor unit so I am pretty sure they are held on by a few nuts and I am pretty sure they are a straight lift out. I have mine disassembled & just checked em. I would advise a few things; 1) pretty sure you can unscrew the fans from the units and then take the units out 2) you can drop the units down and take them out of the bottom 3) if you cant get them out without taking out the radiator that in itself isn't too hard. I took mine out of my US GTS with AC condensor still in palce and ruined the condensor - so don't do that . I recall that taking them out of the euro GT was pretty easy. You will notice that they are the only things on the entire car that use SAE nuts and bolts as the fans are made by Lucas (and the mounting hardware). If you are planning on refurbishing them - you can buy the units pretty inexpensively from any Jag supplier as they are used on some of the sedans. If you do remove the radiator it is always a good time to replace the rubber bushings and you will likely need new rubber grommets for the fan mounts too. All in all it is not a hard job to do. Good luck

 

Remove the grill,which is just a couple of screws and you can then remove the fan bales and eventually the fans. It is not a difficult job. Taking out the radiator would seem to be tackling it from the wrong side.

Not sure about a car with A/C though, mine is a 73 euro spec car.

 

Hi Ron The Lucas motors came in both silver or black so either colour is correct .I replaced both of mine last year on my 71 Euro with a pair from XKs unlimited in California www.xks.com
they also have some nice stainless steel mountings for them if you were thinking of changing them. The fans on my car are 3 bladed cast aluminium and are painted yellow which i have been told was also an original colour on some.The front grill on mine is held in with Pop rivets and was not going to be easy to remove.I removed the blades by loosening the retaining screw which holds them on to the motor shaft(there's a hole about 1/4" diameter in the fan body which you can get a flat bladed screw driver in) then jiggle them off.You can then unbolt the brackets and slacken off the motor body clamps you can carefully slide the motors out and lift them up through the space beside the bonnet hinges. Its quite tricky to get at the nuts but with the bonnet off its not too bad as long as your careful and have a bit of patience. I am sure if you pick the best bits out of several of these replies you will manage it easily Good luck

 

Believe it or not, you can get them out of a car with A/C too. Takes a ton of patience and care, but it's do-able.

I think most of the skin has grown back on my knuckles 5 years later after I did it following a burned out fan from a plastic bag getting caught up in the fan blades.

So without the A/C, should be a relative snap.

Anyone else have YELLOW fan blades? Never seen that on a Dino, maybe Matthias can help with that one?

D

 

I have seen both square and round Lucas radiator cooling fan motors on Dinos. As noted above, they are readily available from Jaguar suppliers, and it seems to me that they cost less if sourced from Jag suppliers than if from Ferrari suppliers (no surprise there).

This past summer Scott M ("synchro" on FCHAT) showed me how to replace the ones on one of my Dinos - the driver's side fan started to squeal so I decided to replace both of them. Scott expertly bashed his knuckles first on one of the fans, and then I had the pleasure of bashing my knuckles on the other one. There was no need to remove the bumpers on my car (nor was there a need to do that on Scott's Dinos, apparently) so I don't understand what advantage there is to removing the bumpers - unless RonG's car is radically different from our cars, although we did remove the grille screen and the hood/bonnet.

Also like djh, I bought the motors from XKs Unlimited in San Luis Obispo, California (North America: 800/444-5247; International: 805/544-7864; www.xks.com).

In the XKs Unlimited catalog, the square style fan motor is listed as Part Number CO-16452 (New) or LU-78378/RB (Rebuilt).

The round style fan motor is listed as Part Number LU-78497. According to XKs Unlimited, the round motor was used on the V-12 Jags and is "functionally superior to the 'square' motor." XKs Unlimited has the mounting adapter brackets to allow switching between both types.

The motors and the mounting brackets shown in the Dino Spare Parts Catalog at Table (Tav.) 14 (the parts catalog to be used from car no. 02132 onward) look identical to the round motors and mounting brackets shown in the XKs Unlimited catalog at pages E124, E129, and E132. XKs Unlimited's prices seemed very reasonable, they were easy to deal with, and they shipped very quickly.

One last thing - I think that we may have had to reverse the motor leads to obtain the correct polarity to keep the fans moving the air in the proper direction (i.e. TOWARDS AND THROUGH the radiator).

I hope this helps someone.

Mark

 

Ron, I was not aware of that rubber strip. Where is it set? Is it original?
Does anyone know what is the proper amount of screws to hold the grille?
Mine has 8 or so holes, but I suppose half of them were holding the car together...

Regards, Alberto

 

the rubber strip is not original
in the 206 GT "Catalogo Parti di Ricambio" from Scaglietti (also applies for L-series) five screws listed, postion not pointed out
regards Matthias

 

Sorry to be off-topic, is the grille painted, or how is it finished?

Regards, Alberto

 

The grill frame is made from two pieces of aluminum. They are shaped to make a top and bottom half and joined using pop rivets on each end. These rivets are generally hidden by the bumpers that curl into the grill opening. The aluminum is clear annodized before assembly to give it an even silver colour. Often times people will paint these silver or with aluminum paint but it is immediately visible to the observant eye.

The actual grill is made from bent steel and painted semi-gloss black. It is fixed to the frame using pop-rivets. Here is a place where powdercoating is a great idea because the paint gets great coverage and is super resistant to damage. The grill can be hard to clean and with the powdercoating you can be fairly rough with it when cleaning and it will not show a mark. Paint will very easily flake or peel.

I also agree with Matthias and have never seen one of these grilles with a black surround. I assume it was added by someone who wanted to 'finish' it off a little. No harm done as it is easy to remove.

Alberto with the metal masters at your disposal making a grill is childs play for them.