my 85 f150 351w has the cooling fan hooked up so it is on all the time.by that i mean no fan clutch. is this truck suppose to have a fan clutch or is what i have now the proper way. thanks

 

I am not sure about the 85's, but my 1980 had the heavy duty cooling option with A/C, and it had the solid hub driven fan with no clutch. I can't say if they had that setup in 85, or possibly someone swapped in the same setup I had when your clutch went out some time before you bought it.

 

Does it still have the original type fan or has someone put in one of those radiator slicing flex fans? All info I look up in my books shows it's supposed to have a fan clutch.

 

I think it is supposed to be a clutch. If you swap on the clutch, you should free up a few horsepower.

 

no it is not a flex fan.the truck does have a/c and has the towing package on it. where the clutch fan would be there is an aluminium spacer.

 

Some trucks have a clutch, some are solid mount. Just my experiences from seeing a crap-ton of these things in the local yard.

 

would it be to my benefit to add a fan clutch. i live in atlantic canada with cold winters and summers in the mid 20's celius.(mid 70's F). thanks

 

You'd pick up a couple hp and fuel economy would be a little better, probably barely noticeable so I'd look for a used (cheap) one.

 

If you really want to pick up HP and a little bit better fuel mileage, swap in an electric fan from a later model Town Car, Grand Marquis, or Crown Vic. It bolts in with very little modification, wires in with 2 relays, and gives a noticible seat-of-the-pants gain in performance. There's a number of sites that provide wiring schematics.

 

Whatever you do dont pick up a used one, you dont know how good it is, if the bearing in it is even the slightest bit questionable it can kill your water pump over time, that's why they should always be replaced in pairs. Or like Bill said, go electric, that's the better way.

 

Yes, it's been my experience the clutch fan clutch will eventually fail, just like any other part like a alternator, waterpump, etc. If that doesn't bother you, it will give less drag on the engine. If you never want to mess with it, then leave what you have on there.

 

I did the electric fan. To be honest, I did not notice much of a gain in mileage at all - although I went from a clutch fan. I did notice a little better seat of the pants performance though.

 

With the electric fan I got a very modest gain of about 2 mpg....doesn't sound like much in mpg, but was still a 14-15% gain. It was really the power that the conversion freed up that made the job worthwhile.

 

It depended on what cooling option you had, as to wether you got a fan clutch or not.

Standard Cool, No fan Clutch.

Extra Cool, some had centrifugal fan clutches, some had factory flex fans. Depends on year and engine.

Super Cool, some had centrifugal (no spring), or Thermostatic (spring on front) fan clutches depending on options and engine etc... A/C etc... Super Cooling was standard on 4.9L engines with A/C for instance.