Well, here is my first break down, and it's the fan Not a big deal, as I turned around and made it home fine without overheating. But here is what happened. The plastic fan blade completely broke off from its shaft:





I guess a rock got caught inside, stalling the fan and eventually breaking off the blade. There are some obvious marks of a foreign object being struck inside:





So as a temporary fix until I get this fan replaced, I soldered the hell out of it back to the shaft:



Tested it a bit and it's holding fine for now.


This failure speaks of just how vulnerable the stock fan is. I was simply driving on a forest service road when this happened. Nothing crazy. So I will replace it with a sealed SPAL fan, which should prevent this from happening again.

 

As you can see, the stock fan is quite open and is just waiting to take a dump:

 

well , with a handle like the terminator ....... lol. gladit didnt throw whatever into the radiator and you made it back ok

 

that would kill any fan... usually oem units crap out due to water. i.installed a kill.switch for water xing and mud.bogging on my oem replacement.

the SPAL unit does not move as much air as the oem and is prone to overheat in traffic w/ ac on. not gonna work for me in houston. I got an oem replacemeny with lifetime warranty from adv auto 135$

the eom mechanical retrofit is a way better option, but i cant due to my snorkel design.