Chipper Radiator fan... Switch over to electric?

[Hoosier]

My ole "Chip more" chipper has a gas in-line 6 ford motor and it is runnin hot when it gets over 85 outside. I was looking at it tonight and that belt has no tensioner for the fan belt. I am also curious how that is affecting the water pump efficiency.
I was going to go to the trouble to work on it but thought I may be better off with a big electric fan that can be left on high even when I have the chipper idled down between runs.

Do you think it would be OK to do away with the belt driven fan and get an electric one that runs on the main switch so it is on high all the time?

 

[DDM]

Been there tried that. It wont move enough air.Flush your coolant system out.I bet your water/coolant is nice and brown. Also changer your thermostat if theres one in there.

 

[DDM]

Been there tried that. It wont move enough air.Flush your coolant system out.I bet your water/coolant is nice and brown. Also changer your thermostat if theres one in there.

Plus see if the fins on the radiator are plugged up.See if you can see thru them if not blow them out with an air hose them wash with water hose.

 

[Hoosier]

Good to know. Thanks for saving me the trouble. Ill check out the system this week.

 

[Rookie1]

If it cooled fine before why isnt it now. Something is wrong or going wrong with it. Like the others said check cooling system. Also check timing and state of tune too.

 

[Hoosier]

If it cooled fine before why isnt it now. Something is wrong or going wrong with it. Like the others said check cooling system. Also check timing and state of tune too.

To be honest it has never cooled well when it is really hot out. This thing has points and is really ancient. I am gona guess the fan belt slips so much that it cant keep up under extream loads, and I have never looked at the thermostat, but the coolant gets checked often and looks like new. For the most part it never runs for a long time, I do mostly small jobs that the big tree companies just wont do, so I am on for 10 minutes at a time.
Last weekend I started a lot clearing job (Brother-in-law's barn site) and it ran a bit hotter than I would have liked, not boiling over, just on the upper part of the meter.

 

[Rookie1]

Are you saying it has no alternator or other accesory to tighten waterpump belt? I worked on an old flathead engine once that didnt have anything like that. Basically the waterpump pulley was a two piece affair that you had to loosen a couple of nuts then twist each half of the pulley to tighten or loosen elt. Hard to explain but check waterpump pulley to see if it has a weird setup.

 

[Hoosier]

Well, I found that the fan mount had two bolts and a set of slots to adjust. GOofey desigh, but it ran much cooler today....go figure.

 

[Rookie1]

Good deal glad to see you figured it out.

 

[Torquin]

Something else that I have seen, even on my own chipper, is when the previous owners did not keep up the maintenance on the cooling system, that brown stuff that was mentioned, the impeller on the water pump can literally rust away, and you can have tight belts and everything else, but it will still overheat.
My BB250 had this exact thing happen and I had to get a new water pump, to the tune of 350.00. Apparently Deere water pumps are gold with cast plating.
In your case it sound like you have it worked out for now, but this is something you may watch for in the future.

Chris