I normally post on the 1800 and 122 board, but I have a freind with a 1981 245. The car has had a history of low grade overheating and we have done just about everything you can think of. Flushed the system, new water pump, repaired water resevoir, new thermostat.

The car is not overheating as bad, but still runs real warm at a stand still..
Question has now come up that the fan clutch may be bad. Will this cause the car to overheat??? The guy who says it is bad put a piece of cardboard in the fan at idle and the fan stopped with no problem.

If this is the problem, can the clucth be rebuilt or is it cheaper to go to the junk yard for a pull off.

Thanks in advance....

Oliver
1966 1800S

Thanks guys. I think a trip to the local junk yard is in order... I will also suggest that the owner look into robbing the electric unit off a turbo junker.

Thanks again.

Driving old Volvos, not slow Volvos.

Oliver

As far as I know, they're just better off replaced. The AISIN brand is the best (junkyard is sometimes OK since they often last basically forever) but you can get aftermarket ones at NAPA or Carquest.

Get one from the latest car you can find. That sounds like a good diagnosis. The fan clutch can be an intermittent problem that is very frustrating to diagnose.
--
Chris Herbst
1992 945, 71k
Volvo shop tech

You can test if the clutch is the problem by tying the fan blades to the water pump hub with nylon cable ties. This will make the fan always turn at engine speed, that is, no slip at all.

However, I've found that the fan simply doesn’t draw much air at idle even with the above. You can verify this by holding a strip of newspaper first in front of the radiator and then around the edges of the fan shroud. Also try this at the back of the fan near the hub. I think you'll find that at idle the fan sucks air from both the front and the backside near the hub and expels it backward off the blade tips. I even had a 3-row radiator installed and it made no difference obviously since the problem is no airflow.

In my opinion there's really no fix for this expect through modification. I solved the problem on my '81 240 w/ac by getting the Volvo electric fan that mounts on the front of the radiator on the turbo models. It has a thermostat that splices into the bottom radiator hose. However, I think the better fix is replacing the engine driven fan with an electric one. Such a modification is not difficult and has been well described previously in this form including pictures.