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I had thought of that and looked for it while underneath but saw nothing the resembled a seam. Maybe the earlier cars had it but not 1954!

On the Patrician, I tried removing the flex fan but due to its long bolts, the radiator must come out first so will have to wait until the next time I’m here when it is back inside and I can more easily capture the coolant. On the photo below, is this the proper fan or is it prewar? I seem to have several of these but I thought the ‘50s models had a smaller center hole..

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On the fan, looking at the parts book shows 1953-1954 with power steering (which mine has) being the same. Of course, it shows a different part number for 1954 with factory A/C (the fan I would prefer) but oddly it lists the same part number for 1951-1953 fans! I had always thought that the A/C fan had six blades and I don’t recall ever seeing such a fan on any 1951-1953 models so any thoughts?

I believe the 6 blade came about for 55-6 but that 53-4 AC or heavy duty cooling fan has been a question.

They mentioned the availability of a heavy duty fan in a 54 SC and said it could be made retroactive for installs back to 51 on cars that needed it. The number was given as 436856 but that part number does not show in the parts book nor did they mention what the difference was.

There is another bulletin issued in 51 where they announced a heavy duty fan and give a diameter of 19 7/8" vs 18" for the standard fan. That fan has the part number in question of 433779 as used for the 53-4 AC.

I am wondering if there was an error in part number with the second announced heavy duty fan or maybe announced but never made. Since they had already issued a heavy duty fan for 51 models maybe they realized it was not needed or the number was wrong in the announcement but corrected in the parts manual. I guess there could have been some kind of problem with the second version fan since they did issue a zone only bulletin in 54 advising mechanics check distance to the radiator core on cars that had excessive fan noise and replace the fan with still another number if needed.

Thank you, Howard! That’s exactly what I needed to know. I have a 1955-1956 6-blade fan for my 1956 Clipper Custom and was surprised to see that it looks much like a flex-fan in construction but far more stout than the one currently in the Patrician so likely does not flex much, if at all.

What color was the 53-54 A/C water pump painted? Was the pump body engine color and the cast 2 pulley black like the fan blade or engine color?
I looked in the service manual and A/C service manual but neither has a good picture of the water pump area.

Howard, I have no idea as I don’t have one. I did, however, discover that all three fan blades that I have in stock are roughly 19” so somewhat in between the 18” and 19-7/8” that you had mentioned. Likely most were from 1951 and 1952 senior models as I parted out a Patrician and a Cavalier, the latter of which was a race car of some sort.

The pump should be engine color. Pump pulley and fan, black.

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Yes, the pump should be engine color with black pulley but Howard’s question was about the special A/C pump and pulley.as I’ve never seen one on a car, I did not want to speculate.

Engines were painted as finished assemble. (basically everything assembled that is painted engine color and directly attached to the block). This is why the crank pulley is engine color, but all the others are not.

So cars designated for A/C would have been painted with their A/C specific water pump in place. Hence engine color.

I've never anything to contrary that their pulleys would have been a different color than standard.