maxbraketorque
NAXJA Forum User
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I picked up a 2000 XJ about a month ago and have been going through the vehicle to get things in good shape. Its quite apparent that the Jeep crowd is fairly polarized on the need for cooling system mods. My XJ is in pretty good shape, and even before I did a cooling system flush, its doing a good job of holding at 210F. The only time it drifts up a bit is in stop-n-go traffic where I've seen it hit 217F on the OBD-II scanner. I suspect that the mechanical fan clutch is somewhat worn, so I plan to replace it with a new XJ fan clutch.
Anyhow, I'd like a bit of extra headroom on cooling system capability, so I've done a bunch of reading on what people have done in the past. There are a ton of different ways to fortify the cooling system, but one thing that seems to have escaped any discussion in the last 10+ years is building a better fan shroud for the mechanical fan. Besides the fact that the mechanical fan shroud seems to become fairly fragile with age and therefore break easily, they do not fully encircle the mechanical fan which decreases the ability of the fan to suck air through the radiator. I suspect that a custom fan shroud that more fully encircles the mechanical fan, perhaps with a slightly tighter gap to the fan blades would significantly improve the cooling performance of the mechanical fan.
Would be great if one of the speciality vendors would make a nice replacement mechanical fan shroud. Besides fully encircling the mechanical fan, another nice feature would be to make it a two piece shroud so that the fan clutch can be more easily replaced. A two piece shroud may also be needed to even install an improved fan shroud. With how easily the factory fan shroud breaks, it seems like this would be a very popular item.
Anyhow, I'd like a bit of extra headroom on cooling system capability, so I've done a bunch of reading on what people have done in the past. There are a ton of different ways to fortify the cooling system, but one thing that seems to have escaped any discussion in the last 10+ years is building a better fan shroud for the mechanical fan. Besides the fact that the mechanical fan shroud seems to become fairly fragile with age and therefore break easily, they do not fully encircle the mechanical fan which decreases the ability of the fan to suck air through the radiator. I suspect that a custom fan shroud that more fully encircles the mechanical fan, perhaps with a slightly tighter gap to the fan blades would significantly improve the cooling performance of the mechanical fan.
Would be great if one of the speciality vendors would make a nice replacement mechanical fan shroud. Besides fully encircling the mechanical fan, another nice feature would be to make it a two piece shroud so that the fan clutch can be more easily replaced. A two piece shroud may also be needed to even install an improved fan shroud. With how easily the factory fan shroud breaks, it seems like this would be a very popular item.