Fan blade broke, Pain in Pennsylvania

ALCON: I have been driving my beast to school once a week for the last 2 months. My round trip is about 80 miles and my M-37 has been a dream to drive ... its stock and I am fortunate as the speed limit on the back roads here are posted 40 or 45 MPH, which is the perfect speed for my classic.

Last Thursday on my return trip from school, I was cruising down a long shallow hill when there was a terrific bang and my beast started vibrating severely. I got her stopped and pulled over on the very narrow berm and shut her down. I thought for minute that I had broken the trany .. and then realized when I climbed out if the cab that I was loosing coolant from the front of the engine compartment. Next thought was that I had broken a piston .. and the engine was toast.

As I raised the hood I noticed a dent near the front of the hood. Something had been thrown into it from the engine compartment. This is what I found!



As you can see, the blade separated at the rivets, and the opposite blade has a stress crack at its rivets too. The vibration from the broken blade was enough to break my housing on the water pump. Fortunatly other than the dent in the hood and some minor damage to the radiator cowl all seems good. I was very lucky that the blade did not take out the radiator. I have a new pump and a blade on the way. You can believe that I'll be inspecting that blade before bolting it on!

You are VERY LUCKY , years ago Ford vehicles had the exact same problem , a neighbor was inspecting his Ford vehicle to pin down a strange noise , fan blade let go , went in his chest almost killed him . I believe there was a recall for the fan blades cracking . After 50-60 years probably not a bad idea to check the fan blade for stress cracks .

That is very unfortunate. Luckily it didn't cause more damage.

I had the same thing happen on my M35A2C on the way to Aberdeen in 2009,except the broken blade went completely through the bottom radiator tank and inserted itself in the warm asphalt about 1 inch.

There was no warning what so ever and BANG, then the smell of antifreeze.

I'm fairly sure there are 3 or 4 extra fans in the lot of parts included with the 2 M37s.

Your sure lucky, it didn't get the radiator, or that your first thoughts, didn't come true!

Probably the hood will be the hardest, and trickest to repair. The metal around the dent is stretched. Doing anything to repair it (make it smooth again), might not be possible, without warping the whole hood. Maybe just repairing the paint, and considering the ding, "battle damage", would be the way to go. The shroud is easy. I think that I would consider riveting a piece back in place, rather the welding, and burning the paint, along with the distortion caused from welding. You can make rivets from small nails (4d or 6d), cutting the shank below the head to the appropriate length, and peaning the other end, that's out of sight. They hold good. The frame is riveted together.

glad everything is relatively alright. That would be cause for me to go straight to an electric fan... At least if one of those blades lets go it doesn't have quite the oomph that the 4bladers do.

We're all lucky those blades don't separate while our necks are over them reaching for the carb.

I had one blade separate on the highway in a 72 chev longhorn with a 402 BB. Just passed a truck and the blade exploded straight up through the hood. It felt like we lost a wheel the vibration was so bad but I hung on and nursed it to the side. It was -20f so we pulled the fan and continued on our way and had no temp issues until we pulled into Banff and idled at the first light.

I owned this truck for 17yrs and can't tell you how many times I hung my neck over the fan to reach for the throttle so I could listen to it.

I'm teaching those around me to reach for the carb from the side and DO NOT stick your head over the fan blade.....BUTT in addition to that we're removing and inspecting fan blades each year when we do our under-chassis inspections.

Nasty experience, glad things worked out.

Wow Mark even though it did create some damage it could of been much worse. I had my fan blade magna fluxed after I sandblasted it, just to make sure this wouldn't happen.

Bert

rosco said:

You can make rivets from small nails (4d or 6d), cutting the shank below the head to the appropriate length, and peaning the other end, that's out of sight. They hold good. The frame is riveted together.

Click to expand...

That is a really good idea.

Memphis Equipment list an NOS fan on there parts page. $60.00 Seems reasonable enough.
Tom

Replaced the blade and pump and took her out for a drive on Saturday ... Ran like a champ and all is well!