Fitting the cooling fan

The fan

I decided to fit one fan behind the radiator. Some people fit one or two fans in front of the radiator. Fitting behind (suction) appears to be more efficient and should get fewer insects bonded on to it!

I bought a 16" suction fan with curved blades that can flow around 3,400 m3/h, from Car Builder Solutions.

Mounting the fan

I pinched the fixing method from Simon (see blog link on right) and blagged some 6 mm thick x 25 mm wide flat bar aluminium from Keith Akerman!

The principle is to fix the bars to the radiator, then fix the fan to the bars.

After cutting the aluminium to the correct length, I drilled two 4 mm holes close to each end of each bar to take 14 mm long rivets.

Aluminium bars with holes drilled in ends

Next the cheek nipping bit. I marked the position of the bars and drilled the holes corresponding to the holes already drilled at the end of each bar onto the radiator frame. All the blogs said that there was no risk in hitting any of the radiator cores, even though everyone had some trepidation in drilling the holes! I made sure that the holes were near to the outside of the radiator, just to be safe, prior to drilling. The bars were loosely fixed to the radiator using pop rivets, just pushing them in place.

Radiator edge with holes drilled for bars

Next the mounting feet were attached to the fan and the holes were marked on the bars. The bars were then drilled to take the M5 rivnuts and countersunk from behind (radiator side).

Bars riveted in place after fitting rivnuts facing fan

Rivnut in mounting foot

The fan was then laid over the four rivnuts to make sure it still fit. Then the pop rivets in the end of each bar were fixed in place. Finally M5 button head screws and washers were used to secure the fan.

Fan secured to bars

Mounting the radiator assembly

The upper radiator frame was re-attached to the chassis, using two bolts. The 'fixing kit' supplied by GD consists of two small sections of rubber hose and a few nuts, washers and bolts. The radiator was located using the protruding pegs from the radiator to the top radiator frame through the rubber mounts. It was then fixed onto the lower mounts using the two nuts and bolts supplied. This results in the radiator being at an angle with the top towards the front of the car. This is a straight forward job.

Fan mounted to radiator

Radiator and fan mounted into chassis