Big Radiator Fan "HUB"

Hector, mine does have the bracket, and we modified that with a piece of rubber hose over the ear of the bracket to keep it from moving to far toward the radiator.
The next time we see each other, I can show you what we did. My radiator has an "X" brace from the upper left corner to the bottom right corner and the upper right corner to the bottom left corner. This "X" brace is about 1/4" in diameter and on the inside of the radiator nearest the fan. The damage was done when the assembly hit the "X" brace shearing off the fins on the round aluminum portion causing them to penetrate the radiator. Guess I am not very good at explaining things, hope this will be clear enough to understand.

Started getting a "Growling" noise from my fan whenever the clutch kicked in on the fan. So I pulled the fan today and I have a small problem.
I need to remove the clutch to be able to get the fan blades off of the fan clutch assembly. I think I am suppose to remove the 3 small nuts in the center, but they are very rusty and frozen. Before I attack this with large dangerous tools, does anyone know for sure if these three nuts are the correct one's to remove? I will post pictures in the next thread on how I removed the fan.

Andre,

I removed mine on the Mothership three summers ago. Unfortunately I've completely forgotten the procedure. I do however have some pixs that I'll provide here. Hopefully they will be somewhat useful. What I do remember was that fan assembly was heavier than crap to get out of it's cradle.
Attachment 5162

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Attachment 5171

Mango,

Thanks, your last picture answers my question. I am going to order a new assembly tomorrow morning. As soon as I am sure 1 is on the way I will tackle the 3 bolts holding it together.

Once again Mango Magic saved the day. Great pictures Mike.

Mango,

In the last 2 pictures above in your last post.

The new top half of the clutch is different then the old one. Did you drill out all the bolt holes and move the ring that contacts the magnets from the old clutch to the new top hat?



Thanks

Andre, these are the new parts I received and they were used as they were furnished by Prevost, nothing added or modified.



JIM

A big thank you needs to go out to Jim and Mango. Both of these fine gentlemen called me and were able to help me get this done. The problem is that the new part number has a different electric cable connection on the fan end, and the heat sink on the clutch end (the finned part) is made a little different then the old part. I got it mostly back together today, but a real bad thunder storm hit, and I had to stop. I hope to finish tommorow and then I will post pictures of how it went all back together.

This is what I did to put things back together.

Attachment 5196
As received from Prevost
Original part number 550634
New part number as delivered 550837, cost $1175.49

Attachment 5197
Remove the 3 center nuts, and remove heat sink

Attachment 5198
Remove 3 bolts and remove ring

Attachment 5199
Placed on Pulley, not bolted to pulley, use as a work stand

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Fan Installed

Continued in next post

Attachment 5201
Install magnetic ring with 3 bolts

Attachment 5202
the piece on the bottom is the old part
the top piece is the new part

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Put heat sink on with 3 nuts

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Ready to go into Bus

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I removed the pipe from the charge air cooler and pushed it up as far as I could. This gave me room to slide the assembly into place.
Then I put the mounting plate onto the assembly. This is where taking pictures ahead of time paid off. Made it a lot easier to get things back in the same place.
The hole that is in the back angled part of the mount is where I used a large cable tie to fasten the wire from the clutch assembly. The change in design of the clutch prevents running it in the sane way that the original wire was run.

Attachment 5206
Pulley attached

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cable tie for holding wire

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fan running, no weird growling noice
SUCCESS !!

I used blue Loctite on all bolts and nuts

I suspect that the first indication that something was going bad with this part was a few months back when I started throwing the 3 belts that go to the gear box from the engine. Whenever the fan kicked in the whole fan mount would jump around. I raised the air pressure going to the air bags and that helped, but the whole fan assembly seem to still jerk to much when the fan kicked in.
Then I started hearing the growling noise.
Now with the new part, when the fan kicks in, it is MUCH smoother, and does not jerk when the fan kicks in.

Andre,

Great post! The pictures really do a terrific job of detailing this project. I'm sure it was much more of a job than your post makes it look.

Thanks for sharing!

Damn fine work Andre. I hate to think what Prevost would have charged you to do the rework/repair but north of three grand would not surprise me. Your documentation needs to go on the "articles" page. Well done.

Andre can you put this post and your tow hitch post in the article section of this site? They are worth having there.
GregM

It is a hard, dirty job. The clutch assembly is very heavy and the only things to grab onto for hand holds all move. I removed it on a Sunday, ordered the part Monday morning and it was delivered Tuesday at noon. I got it mostly installed on Tuesday, then a bad storm hit and I had to quit. Wednesday afternoon I finished up in about 1 hour. I am sure there is more then 1 way to do this, and probably a much better method. But when I tackle a job like this with no first hand knowledge, I just make it up as I go along. Hopefully the next person to do this will benefit from my pain and have a little easier job of it. But it does feel real good to get it done and not have to pay Prevost to do it. I will try to post all of this as an article this weekend. Thanks to all for the kind words and encourgement.

Andre,

That is not only a great summary of the job accompanied by photos, but it should serve as inspiration to anyone that wants to tackle some of their own repairs.

Except for the fact our coaches are big, and some of the repairs involve heavy stuff we shade tree mechanics can do a lot of our own work. You have been added to the list of "experts". I think every one of us who has tackled a repair job ends up with a huge sense of satisfaction. I also feel that because we are not "professionals" we tend to go a little slower, exercise a little more care, treat the coach with greater respect, and in the end do a job as well as or better than most service facilities.

Great job.

Impressive!!

A link to Andre's good work can be found here. He has contributed in the articles section.

Link to Article

Thanks Andre! :D

You can view the page at http://forum.prevostownersgroup.com/...y-Andre-Ducote

Howdy all from East TN.

Joe Cannarozzi came to visit this weekend and do work on bus. One thing he identified (when checking all belts) was loud fan and fan hub, which didn't roll smoothly. He said Jim Chaloupka and (I think) Ed Mrozek had similar issue. What was your experience with this item? Did you have to order new and install? Any options besides the relatively pricey Prevost route?

Any help anyone on the site (in addition to Jim and Ed) can provide, I would appreciate. Thanks.

Eric Faires
Huntsville, TN
2003 Liberty

Hi Eric. I think I read a post last year about changing out the fan hub. I thought it was a relatively simple replacement.

Yes I changed mine out this time last year, so did Andre. Kevin E, Lonesome George and also Pete. I imagine there are others as well.

Just order up the part from Prevost about $1,100.00 and let Joe change it out.

My take is check it regularly by turning the fan itself and the fan drive pulley(two separate things to check for smoothness of operation) without the belt in place.

If you feel you must wash your engine keep the water away from the fan clutch.

The Prevost manual states do not power wash or steam clean the fan blade, use diesel fuel and a soft brush only.

I think there are three threads maybe two and an article by Andre.


JIM:)

Not me. Andre did this and I believe he did an article on the process.

Jimmy C - This is the second day in a row that I asked you to post a link for the old threads instead of starting new multiple threads of the same subject. It takes time to merge all these similar threads and I'm sure not everyone wants to scroll through 60 old threads just to look at the latest post.

Are you testing me for a "delete" function?