XJ81 Fan replacement question

Not sure where I should post this. Either in the xj40 section Or v12

So the other night I was driving and it sounded like I went over a bottle or something so I didn’t think nothing of it. But when I came to a stop I felt a minor vibration nothing major. I looked under the hood and didn’t see anything since it was dark. I was about 12 miles from home so I decided to drive it home

Today I opened the hood to see what that was and it was obvious that my fan shroud had moved and took 2 fan blades with it.

I was wondering how hard and/or time consuming this job will be. I was gonna be heading out of country in a week or so and I don’t wanna leave it sitting broken

Does anyone happen to have a link to a manual that could help me thru the job? Or even a picture from the books lol

Also are the fans for the 6.0 and 5.3s the same
Mine being a 94 xj12 is a 6l. Looks like the early ones have part no 4553 and the later ones have 4552. Are these interchangeable as I’m trying to find one for a decent price

As these plastic engine driven cooling fans age the plastic in them gets brittle. It is not all that uncommon for them to shed blades like this, particularly if they strike something. I think in your case it would be difficult to tell if the flying blades took out the fan shroud or if somehow a loose fan shroud took out the blades. You are really lucky the loose flying fan blades didn’t end up in the radiator. This can easily happen when you loose a fan blade at higher engine rpms.

You might want to look into converting the car to the twin electric fan system from a 93 - 94 XJ40 or X300 six cylinder cars unless you can find a good XJ81 fan blade somewhere.

I think other folks with the XJ81 cars have converted them to the late style twin fan system off of the 93 - 94 XJ40 or the 95 - 97 X300 cars. I am sure others will chime in with details or you might be able to do a search on the internet for details on how to do this.

Good luck.

Steve

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I was wondering what trick most people use to take the nuts off of the water pump to get the fan off. It spins when I try to take the nut off

Edit. I used a screwdriver to hold it and I got the bolts loosened. But something that kind of worries me that I kinda saw the threads moving with the nuts on 2 of the 4. Hopefully everything goes back together normally

They are short studs, common for some to not stay in the flange. When you have them out you can remove the nut and clean the thread then reinsert into the flange with a touch of loctite.

Hopefully the threads are ok, but if not, you will have to re-tap them and use helicoils to repair.

Not an insurmountable task, but a pain in the ass and quite common where water or coolant can seep on to the bolt threads. Use a new gasket with plenty of sealant on re-assembly, making sure that the bolt holes are isolated from any coolant seepage.

Larry, the question was about the fan being removed from the flange, not the water pump/block bolt/studs

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OOPS! - I read water pump so did the old “assume” :roll_eyes:

Waiting on new fan to show up.

The blade did hit the radiator. Luckily it seems to be ok since I drove it home 12 miles and I don’t see sign of leaking and also when I started it without the fan it’s not leaking water.

But I need to fix another leak on one of the transmission lines so I’ll do that while waiting for the fan