How far can you go without having any type of air cooling device? I want to drive my car to work tomarrow (4mi.), but the new electric fan is not wired in yet, and the mechanical fan is off. The rest of the cooling system has been replaced, so thats all doing it's job well. The air temperature should be around 50-60 degrees tomarrow, and I might have to wait 30 seconds at one stop light on the way.

what do you think? will it be a problem, or should i pop on the mech. fan?

 

Sounds like a beautiful day for a bike ride!
You have a nice car, Iwouldn't risk it (for a job!)

 

You should be able to make it, but rotaries are overheating don't mix so don't risk it. As it looks like you already know the only reason for fans is when you are stopped they keep flowing air through the rad so the vehicle doesn't overheat. Just throw your mech fan back on and be safe!

 

Yea, don't do it...it's not worth it.

Rich

 

would only take you 1hr to put it back together just be carefull with those nuts cause i snaped one the other day i was sooo gutted what kinda electric fan ya putt in i got the taurus one and im in the same boat just have to wire it up now

 

I have an electric fan that I am too lazy to wire a switch into. When I'm at a race (think five minute-long runs in the space of a half hour or so, per heat) I just go underhood and connect the relay wire to one of the coils so the fan is on any time the engine is running.

The rest of the time, the fan is electrically disconnected. Same as running without a fan. I have been running this way for over a year.

The ONLY time the engine gets hot is if I'm in a drive-thru waiting for more than ten minutes. The solution is to shut the engine off when it starts to get past normal temp. Or simply shut it off as a matter of habit, you waste a surprising amount of fuel just sitting there idling. (The carb bowls drain dry in barely a couple minutes!)

Any time you drive faster than 20-odd MPH you're getting enough cooling. Stoplights are a very minor nuisance in this regard, IF the engine starts getting warmer than normal, it cools off right away as soon as you start moving. You can watch the needle drop, often back to normal even before you're up to speed.

 

i drive w/o turning on my e-fan on light traffic on windy cool days, and sometimes even summer. no problems here so far.

i put oil in my radiator to also help cool it down. classic old school technique that does wonders... to those who want to believe it that is.

 

it doesnt even take a hour to get the mechanical one on, takes me about 10 but thats because i have taken it off and on the last 2 weeks to many times.

 

yeah, i put it on this morning and it took about 5 minutes. It was worth it, too because I went to subway for lunch in the next town over, and the traffic was pretty bad. Plus, I don't think my temp guage works because it never goes above 1/5 of the way up.

thanks for telling me to put it on!

 

its 4 miles and 1 light and nice cold weather i dont have 1 right now and drive 18 miles 30 seconds is nothing

 

yank out the thermostat, it will run far cooler than need be

 

I have been driving everyday since november w/o a cooling fan, as long as your not sitting in traffic you shouldn't have an issue, just watch your gauges. I will be putting a efan on her soon tho.

 

do not do this........its very bad for you motor.

 

That's about "normal" temp. Halfway up the dial is around 210-220 degrees, YMMV.

 

ok i got a question:

is the main function of the fan to blow air through the radiator, or to blow air on the motor? With the new e-fan i put on (pusher style- in front of rad.) not much air seems to be going through to the engine (compared with the mech fan). It's the 14" fan from victoria britsh, a hayden i believe.

 

Think about that a minute...

 

ok i did.

what's your angle?

 

Well, what is used to shed heat from the engine.... the radiator.

How does the radiator shed heat... it transfers heat from coolant flowing through it to air flowing through it.

If you cooled the engine by blowing a fan over the engine, you wouldn't need a radiator now would you?

 

alrighty then

that makes sense

thank you

 

are you speaking from experience or just something you've read?

running without a thermostat for temporary use is fine and would work great in this case. i'd rather run too cold than too hot.

 

too cold is just as bad as too hot, it causes excessive bearing wear, also w/o the thermostat there you would need a restrictor plate to keep the flow at a certain level or it won't cool at all really.

 

ive run without a thermostat for weeks without problems, just slapped a piece of cardboard infront of the radiator, temp ran right where it should be.

 

In most engines, running with no thermostat causes overheating. The thermostat is an important restriction at the end of the coolant train, to cause pressure buildup inside the engine itself to prevent localized boiling. Rotor housing temps near the spark plugs can get well over 400 degrees. If you get localized boiling there, it will not be reflected as general overheating because a film of steam will actually be insulating the coolant from the hot metal. So you need lots of pressure (30-40+psi in the engine!) to keep localized boiling from occurring.

Rotaries are a special case because the thermostat also controls the water bypass. The water bypass is built into the water pump/thermostat housing, there is a foot on the bottom of the thermostat that closes the bypass off when the t-stat is open. With no T-stat at all, nothing closes the bypass, and coolant can go right from the water outlet to the inlet, bypassing the radiator altogether, *all the time*.

This type of thermostat is becoming increasingly popular, BTW.