Well I was going to park in snowy conditions and went into the space a little to crazy and bumped into the waiting curb. And I think it may have put me and my car in a world of $&!%.

Idling it makes a horrible noise, like a diesel engine that is about to blow up and die. So I looked under the hood and found that the fan blade to be just rubbing on the lower left portion of the radiator housing deal. Barely touches it but touches it, like it must be a 16th or 32nd of an inch.

Like I said when it is idling, sounds horrid but get up to 35 mph or above and the sound dampens and gets much much less agressive to the point where you can barely hear it with the window down.

At frst I thought maybe the fan came loose but it is tight with zero play(other than the spinning it should do). What I fear is that I bent the radiator in and caused it to touch the fan. I hit the curb at no more than 5 mph and the curb was higher than normal but not excesively high but slightly higher than the clearance of the plastic shroud on the car that seems to be bolted to the bottom of the radiator. I checked for water leaks etc and havent seen anything.

Did this dumb accident totaly screw me over? I am so sad and embarrased to drive it.
Forgot to say I was driving a 1990 xj40

 

Hi, it would be highly unlikely that the fan would be touching the radiator. It would cut through it like a chainsaw through butter and you would know.

The shroud however sounds like it might have been dislodged. It has clips at the top and male type tangs at the bottom that slot into the body support (at least my 92 does).

If you can raise the car you can check the bottom fixings for damage, if not, try uncliping the top and repositioning the shroud. Sounds like you might have bent the bottom support bracket a little.

When you unclip the top clips you might well see the whole shroud move upwards due to the release of pressure caused by the bent bottom supports.

You would then need to bend them back into position.

Warning with the fan in place you don't have much space to work with.

If you ignore the problem the fan will eventually eat its way through the shroud and your sound will probably go away, however you will also run the great risk of destroying the fan clutch and creating an expensive repair.

If you have bent the rad support and moved everything in relation to the fan it must have been quite a thump.

 

At first I thought the fan shroud was the problem however I have verrified that the fan is touching the radiator. It is not touching any of the fins just the metal cover on the side of it.

I will unclip the shorud and see what it looks like and raise the car when I get home. I hit the curb, like I said no more than 5 mph but I guess that curb was just an inch too high.

Lets say I did bend the radiator support or something...is that fixable without bodywork?

 

Just to confirm; we are talking mechanical belt driven fan here?

When you hit the curb did you more or less land on top of it? I'm just trying to work out for myself, how you may have moved the radiator without doing any other damage.

Any chance of any pics.

DO NOT DO THIS WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING.

If you look at the shroud you should see about 1/4" of clearence between the end of the blades and the shroud.

Also unless you have very fat builders type fingers your should be able to get your finger between the front edge of the blade and the side tanks of the radiator.

I'm thinking that you may have bent one side of the rad support bracket under the front of the car, or even have just pushed the rad from a mount, but you don't mention whether the rad looks scew wiff along the top.

When you have had the chance for a good look under the car post up what you find.
With pics if possible.

Cheers,

 

I will get pics of it tomorrow or saturday. I have clearance of at least 1/4 inch on all sides of shroud. it is just touching the radiator side tank deals in just one little spot. Havent really examined it much further. I think the car did slide up on the curb a bit but it felt no worse than when you are parking and you pull up just a bit to far and grind your plastic shroud a bit.

 

Here's an idea to play with. When you jumped the curb the frame flexed and the rad. got cocked because it wasn't secured properly. This theory provides that:

1. The fan blade is OK.
2. The shroud is OK.
3. The rad is cocked and mearly needs to be realligned.

I hope this theory holds because it costs you no money to fix.

 

Well I got home today and drove the car up on some ramps and took a look and start tearing parts off to see the radiator. I could see the left side radiator mount where it fits into a hole on the bottom was off just a hair and since my fan was only touching a hair I opted for the brute force method and pulled the radiator assembly toward the front of the car. Heard a little pop and now everything looks and works normal

Also replaced the distributor o-ring because I have a pretty moderate oil leak from there. I was so relived when the car started. lord was I nervous. Although I think it probably wont help the leak, the o-ring that got replaced looked in fine condition.

Thanks for the help guys, my car dosent sound like it is going to blow now.

 

Glad it turned out to be nothing major, and a free fix at that;-))

Now you know what to do, next time you make an uncontrolled landing.