(I can't spell worth a crap today. I meant "Preventable" fan replacement.)
If you guys haven't gone over your cars lately, now that the summer's on the way out, it might be a good idea. I garbaged my Beetle fan through failure to pay attention to warning signs.
One of the noises I heard at the track last week was my fan hitting on my shroud a couple times per revolution.
Seems to me that the Big Ole' Nut in the middle of the fan wasn't tightened down as well as it should have been after the generator replacement last month, and I'd been driving around with it "snugged."
Bad idea. Now, having said that, it was tightened with a wrench and a screwdriver in the pulley, but the RIGHT way to do it -- putting an adjustable wrench on the flywhel and a socket in the fan side -- has now been done on the replacement.
Luckily, I had the pieces from the generator, and a replacement for the fan that needed only a good scrubbing and some black paint.
Good as new.
Incidentally, the vibrations from the fan being garbaged were similar to the sounds of sheet metal being loose -- because all of my tins touch and are riveted in like drumskins, the whole butt-end of the car was vibrating like a pack of noisy metal crickets with no particular pattern.
All's well that ends well.
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