Reply With QuoteInteresting reading Mercguy, re the failed fan.
I used to have lots of Rovers up to when I got my '79 RRC. Mainly P6s, but then started on SD1s too.
My first was a very ratty '76 model. Interesting departure from the luxurious P6 philosophy.
Anyhow, this '76 one day decided to go 'all diesel' on me. Out on a highway I forget, I hear a loud metallic thud, the receding tinkling of a metallic thing and then a diesel like vibration from the otherwise smooth V8.
Obviously had to pull up to check what the problem was, and as the V8 still had power, my initial thought of a piston having flown the coup couldn't be right.
Pulled up, and motor vibrating really really badly .. as said, not unlike a typical old school oiler. Switched off to see if anything obvious, but couldn't notice a thing.
Never thought that a metal fan blade would just come clean off so easily. Yeah this one had a 5 or 7(can't remember) bladed metal blade on the viscous. I do remember it was odd number tho.
Couldn't see it, till I closed the bonnet and noted a small dent from inside out. Oh!
Opened bonnet looked close at the area, and then saw that one of the blades was missing. Was obvious as anything having so few blades.
Reason I remember the odd number of blades was that I had to choose which blade to snap off to re balance the fan ... as best as possible.
Enny Meeny mynie mo did the trick. Blade levered back and forth and V8 pretty much smooth again. No other damage tho. Dodged that bullet having read your story. New fan found back at home and all good again.
Other worrying fan cracking issue I(we) had to deal with was brothers Patrol(4.8lt)
Over a Xmas/NY camping trip to the Murray, his Patrol started overheating, blew hoses etc. I traced it to a failed VC hub.
All we could do with the tools I had was to hand drill a couple of tek screws to get us up to the Murray, settle the families and deal with getting a VC hub for a Patrol up in Albury .. should be easy. No hope.
Went to Nissan, and a couple of other auto parts places, none in stock. For a Patrol .. in Patrol country!
But the real issue was his fan. Lots of stress fractures throughout the entire fan. And now locked up obviously a lot more likely to break.
So while in Albury we also got a lot of expoxy(some Selleys stuff, can't recall which one) and just basically glued it all up before it shattered to tiny bits.
Well, it kind of worked .. only in that it didn't break into thousands of shards .. but having let it dry for 2 days(we just chilled for the week), after the first run, all the epoxy we smeared over the fan just whizzed off in all directions.
There's Bendigo Radiators too.Originally Posted by DoubleChevron
Where did you get the nice big rebuildable radiator ?
Back in the early-mid 90's when I needed a rad for my '79, I thought of using him to rebuild mine, quote was about $900 or so.
But I also think that included an external oil cooler as well(maybe).
At the time I was mates with Tim at Roverdrive, and he found me an all copper std rad for under $200 .. so of course I went with that instead.
Not exactly sure what he charges now, (about 3-4 years ago now) I think he said $700 for a four core(rebuild of your own) for a Tdi rad.
Tdi rad is 3/4 the width of the V8.
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