No fan clutch; its a 6 blade, but they are small blades. I'm not sure what Flex fan looks like but this one has metal blades riveted to the fan arms. Shroud appears okay but I'm not sure what to check for. Its in place, not cracked and attached securely to the radiator. The fan sits within the shroud entirely; none of it sticks out. Looks like the fan could be a bit larger to fill the shroud opening more fully. I'll have to try to upload a pic.

I washed down the radiator this morning and straightened as many fins as I could get to. And also cleaned the tranny cooler and the oil heat exchanger. Lot of stuff in front of this radiator competing for air. Luckily no AC on this truck.

Air flow seems decent; it will hold a piece of notebook paper (even through the tranny cooler).

 

A flex fan has plastic blades that as you work it harder the pitch decreases, lowering the air flow. It saves fuel but is stupid for good cooling. The blades on my 7 bkader are the same size as the blades on a clutch fan except there is no clutch to decrase their rpm and the blades extend clear to the water pump center line. I have a pic somewhere of the 7 blade fan before I installed it. Now all I have to do is find it.

 

I've also seen them as metal, almost light gauge spring steel; shiny in comparison to the mountings they are riveted to.

Any numbers stamped into the fan? Ford OE will usually have numbers.

 

Put a real gauge on there so you know if the engine is overheating or not. Regardless, if any heat problem is suspect and you ru either a factory or any stamped impeller water pump, toss it and get an Edelbrock 8866.

 

Don’t forget that the stock thermostat on a 460 is a 195 thermostat. These engines are designed to run at or above 195 degrees. The point of a 195 degree thermostat is to get the engine up to that temperature and to keep it at that temperature or a little higher. They do this because the engine burns cleaner at these temps and is more efficient. If you put a temp gauge on the new cars today, they are running at these temperatures too. The trick is to keep within these temps when pulling a trailer up hills or in the heat. Putting a lower temp thermostat will slow the engine in reaching 195 but it will still reach it. I know from surfing the forums here that some guys are running in the 180’s with larger radiators etc but they are losing power and efficiency.
I stroked my 460 to 545 with 10.5:1 compression AND I live in Sacramento with summer heat that can go to mid 100’s. I’m still having trouble with the hot days but other than the 100 degree days I run steady at 210 degrees. I have an aluminum high volume water pump with a high volume 193 degree thermostat, a 26”x 24” – 3 core stock radiator. My oil holds at 230 degrees with a Ford oil cooler… (I’m running synthetic oil). Like you I’m still working at stabilizing my temps but in these temps. My temps get closer to 250 while pulling in heat or mountains. The radiator is good though I am thinking about a 4 core or aluminum radiator upgrade and have a good fan & fan clutch. Another thing that is on the wish list is to change from a 6 quart oil pan to a rear sump 8 quart pan (more oil helps with cooling). I agree that figuring out how to get the air temp under the hood cooler will help with the engine temp. I keep thinking about cutting holes in the inner fender and fans to blow into the space above the plastic liner. Wrapping your headers will reduce under hood temps, but there are plenty of threads in the exhaust forum saying not to do it on a daily driver, it will significantly shortens the life of the headers.
Just my 2 cents. I look forward to what you achieve and with what.
Earl

 

You are aware that Ford had an automatic fast idle system on the stock 460 for when the temp got above 210°, are you not? In the thermostat housing there is a vacuum switch that is temp controlled. Both ported vacuum and manifold vacuum go to it and also the distributor's vacuum advance unit. Normally the ported vacuum controls, but when engine temp reached 210° the vacuum switches to manifold vacuum, there by advancing the timing, making the engine idle at 1800 to 2000 RPM. This increases air flow thru the radiator and supposedly cooling the engine down. My '84 had this and it sort of worked but you had to shift the C6 into neutral to get good effect from it. Since I opted to only drive this truck on the highway now and stay out of the city, I have disabled the system, but the switch is still there whenever I want to reconnect it.