| Thermo Fan Fitting |
 To keep the spridget cool in traffic I decided to fit a thermo fan and remove the plastic engine mounted one. (I also got the radiator cleaned out)
1) Drain and remove the radiator 2) remove the fan bolts,Pulley, fan and steel spacer ( you will need to put the steel spacer in front of the pulley and bolt up again if you forget the spacer the bolts fowl on the water pump and the pulley wont turn!!) 3) I picked a Davis Craig fan (10 or 12 inch from memory so measure up) and thermostat. There are other brands around but you need to get one that is fairly thin if you are fitting behind the radiator as shown here. Note the lower screw around the fan engine plate, this should be filed down by half to help with fitment 4) The Davis-Craig fan came with wiring instructions. I added plugs on the fan wires so I could disconnect the wireing and take the radiator out in one piece. I also rivited on some angle aluminium to mount the thermo switch (see photo 2). 5) Make sure the fan “sucks” air through the radiator swaping the 2 wires from the fan engine reverse its direction. 6) test fit bolted on and power up to make sure the fan doesn’t fowl on the steering rack. Its important to bolt it up and test the fan as if it does fowl the fan engine will not turn and likely burn out. I had to file and slot the radiator bracket about 5mm and pull the radiator up, so the radiator fan cleared the steering rack. Also file down the lower screw head on the fan as shown in the photo above. if you dont file down the screw it can get jammed up on the steering rack and distort the plastic around the fan blades obstructing them.
7) Bolt up tightly, refill the fluids and run for a few moments with the radiator cap off to get air out of the system. I got the car up to mid waypoint on the temp gauge and set the thermostat to switch tp on just below that point around (85c) TIP: when bolting up the radiator you can use slightly longer bolts, this makes fitting it all together a much easier task and saves a lot of swearing! good luck!
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| Overheating Problems |
 One the problems many Sprite owners encounter is engine overheating. Many things can cause engine overheating, the usual being incorrect timing,faulty water pump, wrong thermostat, fan on backwards,dirty radiator.
Most people like myself try all the ‘band aid’ solutions, such as getting rid of the thermo-stat, installing an electric fan, new water pump, fitting a blanking off sleeve,flushing the radiator. In the end nothing really makes enough improvement, so what do you do? Simple get you radiator recored or better still get ‘Rally type ‘ double core fitted and finally your problems are solved. How do I know, I did all of the above. Here is Alan Symond’s (Big Al’s) solution to engine overheating problems. |