Water Pump - Roaring noise from fan

[tbags4ever]

Hi Everyone,

I just diagnosed and fixed a problem with my water pump, of which the exact symptoms I wasn't able to find on the forum here (anyone feel free to refer a thread that might if you can find it). So, here was the issue:

Engine would idle very roughly, almost with a little growl in it. When I would rev up the engine, the growl seemed to get louder. So, I first thought it was exhaust related (I've let parts on the Secondary Air System go bad for a while, because emissions test isn't due until December this year). I thought that there was possibly some exhaust noise coming from the SAS somewhere; blower, hose, etc. One time, I had to rev it up above 3k RPM to accelerate on the highway, and I thought something was going to fall off.

Well, to shorten it up, all it took was a look under the hood to see that the cooling fan was very wobbly. The roaring noise was actually coming from the fan rubbing on the shroud. My first suspicion was that it was a bad fan clutch. But after a quick wiggle of the fan/water pump pulley, it was obvious that the water pump bearing went bad and threw the fan out of whack. Simple replacement of the water pump fixed it (well, taking off the shroud isn't so simple, but the water pump has to be the easiest replacement there is once the shroud is off).

That leads me to this question(s) for everyone: 1. who has converted to the electric cooling fan, and 2. Would anyone advise against converting to the electric? .......everything I read is mainly positive. Horsepower gain, better fuel efficiency, etc. If anyone advises against, or recommends where to go for the conversion, please do advise!

Thanks!

 

[The_Roadie]

Classic water pump behavior if you don't catch it in its first stages of deterioration. I think most folks catch it before the shroud gets involved. SO that's the lack of discussion.

Efans are difficult to justify on pure horsepower reasons. I've analyzed the math and posted about the physics many times. For me, in extreme desert heat at low ground speed crawling on rocky trails, they don't keep up the cooling demands, so my experiment with them failed. I was annoyed at wasting the $$ when I took them out. But other people swear by them, even though I believe they're relying on their uncalibrated butt-dynos to justify feeling good about the investment.

If you want better performance, the best bang for the buck is generally agreed to be a PCM of NC tune.

 

[Mooseman]

Despite the naysayers, I have efans and they work great for me. I do agree that they may not be for everyone (extreme heat and/or load). This is http://gmtnation.com/f24/my-electric-fan-setup-montana-venture-efans-2425/ . My setup is not perfect as I have to manually activate them with the A/C but there are some suggestions in the thread to fix that. It is a bit of work though. Cost wise, it's probably the same. I can't say if I gained MPG's or HP's because I was dealing with other issues at the same time. If you do go ahead with efans, be prepared to be able to tinker and modify stuff to mount them and be able to do electrical work.

I don't recommend PCMofNC's efans as a few have had problems with them overheating and failing fans. But I do recommend a tune from them and will be necessary to get rid of the fan error codes.