Thread: 300Tdi too far forward 1/2 inch?

Hey folks,

I have a strange problem with my 300Tdi where my fan is hitting the fan shroud.
I haven't ran a fan shroud for a long time, and the other day i was reinstalling it, and it turns out that i can't reinstall the fan as the fan blades hit the shroud.
It appears that the engine is too far forward about half an inch!

I know the gearbox mounts are in slotted holes and allow forward and back movement during installation but the engine mounting bolts to chassis are not slotted and only allow one location...

Anyone seen this before? The obvious problem could be the radiator bracket being too far rearward but it is in the same location as when i used to run a fan shroud... bolted to the little brackets with the isolation rubbers.

It's doing my head in!
Thanks.

Originally Posted by Finnius

Yeah that's right.
But I keep hearing of guys that have 200/300TDi's without any fan at all! Perhaps they are all in the UK where its cold all year round.
....

FWIW: I used to do that in mine. Firstly as a test to see what'd happen, then during winter on a regular basis.
I found that as long as ambient was not too much more than 18-ish °C, mine ran fine with no fan on, around town or on easy highway/freeway driving.
I never saw too much over about 88°C coolant temp.
Only gotcha was if on a long climb, where EGT would rise from a normal 400-ish to high 600's for a few minutes at highway speeds. Fan HAS to be on, in that situation otherwise coolant would hit 100°C or more.

This year is the only time in the past 3 years where I haven't bothered to remove it for the 3 wintery months. But with Vic lockdowns, locked up and not only nowhere to go, but not allowed to go anywhere .. no reason to bother.

Actually the main reason I have(or had) done this is to see if an electric fan would give quicker warm up time, and it definitely does.
I have a regular run through suburban streets, takes about 5 mins to get to the first major set of lights, with one quick side street set between house and the major.
In that 5 min drive on a cold winter day, I'd get to the major set of lights (with fan on), coolant at 55°C, (with fan off), 60-65°C. Big difference in heater warmth between those two coolant temp levels.
My Tdi normally runs coolant in the high 70s' - low 80's consistently.

I feel confident that my Tdi's cooling system is running fine and dandy, and would feel OK with installing an electric fan .. except on long runs up hill, in high ambients. I've given mine a bit of a fuelling tweak to suit my driving style, with a careful eye on max EGTs.
I'm not so confident in having most off the shelf current electric fans tho in those hotter days and having to climb a long hill where EGTs get up into the mid to high 600's tho.

Measure some static distances, eg from front of fan to rear of radiator, and anything else that you reckon may be strangely out of whack.
I haven't run my shroud for a good 4 years now(I busted it .. oops!) and took it off to epoxy it, and just forgot to re install it. Has made zero difference to operating temps tho ever since. But from memory, there would easily be at least 3 or so inches(maybe 70-ish mm) clearance on mine from fan to rad.