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Topic: How To Add A Six Blade Fan To A 1949 Packard

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Packard 1948

How To Add A Six Blade Fan To A 1949 Packard

Home away from home

Since the engine was new and since it is like 100 F around here I thought I would add a 6 blade fan. Seemed like an easy modification however this took about three days to make happen...

I bought a black 16 inch steel "racing fan"unit with a 5/8 inch arbor from Speedway motors online for 40 bucks.

I had my brother in law machine up a spacer to place on top of the water pump pulley because the Packard water pump inlet has a 1 inch shaft and then a 5/8 arbor at the end and I needed the arbor to center the fan on the shaft.

I then found out that the winglets of the new fan were in conflict with the radiator so I used my dial indicator and ascribed a line in the painted surface of each blade exactly 1 inch inboard from the fans outer edge and cut off that one inch from all six blades. Not 100 percent scientific however it is not like this fan is installed on a 8000 RPM race motor. The fan does not appear to wobble even at high RPM so I guess I got close enough...not like the old fan was perfect anyway.

Since the fan is kinda close to the radiator...and since I cannot remove the radiator with the 6 blade fan installed (because the lower water neck will not slip through the spaces in between the fan blades). Also it proved impossible to thread the little bolts into the fan/spacer/water pump pulley I decided to use four steel studs cut to the PERFECT length so that I can slip the fan down in between the radiator and the studs and then onto the studs and then still with two fingers be able to place the nuts onto the studs and then slip a 7/16 inch open end wrench in between the radiator and the fan blades and tighten the nuts onto the stud 1/16 turn at a time. Now, when the nuts are tightened down onto the studs there is still 1 thread of the stud sticking out above the nut (took a while to get that right). Note to self...if the studs are threaded too far into the holes in the water pump flange they will hit the water pump casting and prevent the fan from turning (took some bad words to figure that out).

I used blue thread lock both in the water pump flange threads and on the nut threads just to make me feel better.

Then I found out that the oval slots of the new fan were a bit too wide for the studs and the 7/16 inch hex head nuts so I re-drilled the four fan hub holes using the perfect sized hole for the stud and now the fan will not slip back and forth as the engine revs. (Found that out after I bolted the fan on the first time...gee...glad I used the blue thread locker and only had 1/16 of a turn on the wrench...Im here to tell you...that stuff sets up fast when heated by the radiator) Picture shows the wide oval holes but I forgot to make a picture of the new holes.

Now the fan REALLY blows some air through the radiator and as a result...there is an extra bonus in that there is also now a 15 Kilometer radius bug no fly zone centered around my dad's house where...no surprise...there are no more flying bugs to be found.

Bill

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