Any ideas on electric fans ?
I plan to remove the engine driven fan and fit a puller . This frees up a lot of space to fabricate a cowl that covers more of the rad , or is it not necessary ?
Hi Jim,
I opted for installing an additional fan at the front of the radiator, keeping everything else in place. There was already a possibitiy to mount a temperature sensor in the radiator (someone in the past had opted for an VW/Audi type of temp sensor but why not…). I went for a sensor with the rating 94C on and 86C off, but there are many others available.
To remain as close as possible to original aftermarket solutions of that era, I opted for an old (but perfect) Kenlowe fan. I used the cross tube in front of the radiator to mount brackets and some spacers to get the fan as close as possible to the radiator (you can zoom in for more detail). It works fine and the highest temp I’ve seem sofar is 95C in heavy summer traffic.
I know there are better solutions as e.g. in my case even with the fan just 2 mm away from the radiator, air is still trying to escape via the sides and not through the radiator. More modern electric fans have a frame (“shroud”) that is mounted on the radiator block and air is pushed through the radiator. But using plastics tie-wraps through the radiator to mount the electric fan wasn’t my kind of “period solution”.
Regards,
Bob K,
Maybe not necessary. The 140 owners on this forum have typically not reported the overheating problems often reported by 120 owners.
You have the improved fan, water pump, radiator, shroud and intake manifold not found on the 120.
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Hello,
On my XK140 I removed the mechanical fan and cowl.
Just one big strong fan at the read of the radiator, controlled bij a adjustable mechanical thermo switch.
It works great, and at least you do not see that fan through the Radiator.
The combination of a fan in front and a mechanical fan at the rear is not optimal, they will be working against each other.
Did the same solution for my XK150 and classic S-type.
regards,
Peter Jan
I am with Rob on this.
An XK140 in good and well maintained condition, does not have any inherent design problems/deficiency with its cooling system, so does not need to be modified with a modern (or period) electric fan, and regardless, they are UGLY.
If you have an XK140 experiencing overheating, diagnose and fix the problem.
Simply adding an electric fan doesn’t fix a cooling system problem, merely addresses the symptoms of the problem that still remains.
Roger
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Acknowledging that my vehicles may not be supremely tip-top, is it really reasonable to expect an unmodified XK to exit a motorway and then queue for an hour to travel a mile without boiling up? I wouldn’t expect any of my diverse classics to cope unaided with the excruciatingly slow stop-start traffic at summer events in the UK. I’ve taken the view that I’d rather succumb to an inelegant electric fan (a camouflaged front-mounted Kenlowe) than to a warped cylinder head.
Chris T.
Well… while traffic in the fifties maybe didn’t have motorways to blast down before sitting for ages in traffic queues, they certainly had the second bit to contend with. Traffic congestion due to rapidly-growing numbers on the (much) smaller system of the day was incredibly common and prolonged in many parts of the UK. Just look at the jams in some of those period newsreels!
I regularly run a 50-yr-old 2¼ petrol series Land Rover, which has no electric fan, no temperature gauge, or warning light. I tow with it, and it sits in traffic for long periods of time without showing any signs of distress. I know the Landie was deliberately designed to run cool because of the pattern of usage it would likely get, but nevertheless I’m not convinced the XK needs the now-ubiquitous electric fan. I’ve always found removal of the mechanical fan problematic, particularly in several Healey 3000s and the Cobra 289. I’ve always ended up refitting them. The only car of mine that doesn’t have its original mechanical fan is the '68 Mustang - but that engine and ancillaries are so heavily modified anyway. It has two outsize Spal fans that operate on individually-switched thermostats and which could probably work on top of a helicopter. I’ll be trying my XK without and seeing how it goes.
Lets face it. Electric fans are a modern improvement which will draw air through the radiator even in stop and go traffic, and will not eat up HP when not needed. That said, they are butt ugly and scream that the car is not original. The radiator is particularly prominent on XKs so there is no hiding a front mounted electric fan, which can be seen even through the grille. As Roger says, this may be a solution in search of a problem, but I would not install one until all other possibilities had been exhausted. There are a lot of upgrades which are invisible, or less than obvious, but this is not one of them.