Re: {Chrysler 300} 1962 Water Pump & Fan Clutch

Matt/George,

The Napa pumps I have been using (42032) have six vanes (pictured). Maybe these are for the a/c cars as Don mentioned fewer vanes. These have worked fine on non-a/c cars too but may not be ideal. I’ll check with Napa to see what the options are.

George that is good info about your problem- I wouldn’t have thought the spacing between the fan clutch and radiator would have been significant at highway speeds- seems it would be dwarfed by the airspeed of wind coming in at 70 mph (whether or not fan spins at all seems almost negligible at that speed). So the closer clearance to your radiator sounds critical for higher speeds unless a red herring…

V/r

D&K

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 6, 2023, at 12:15 PM, G VERBERKMOES <zzub@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Hey Guys…Check the distance of the fan-clutch vanes to the radiator. I had the original fan-clutch that came with the car when I purchased it. I decided I should get a new fan-clutch so I took the old one to NAPA and we went through their fan-clutches and found one that matched the one I had. Come to find out the original fan-clutch I had was incorrect. Installing a thermal fan-clutch with the vanes of the fan-clutch 1/2 inch away from the radiator solved my 28 year old overheating problem.

I’ve had my 1965 300L with A/C for close to 30 years. When I first purchased the car it had a flex-fan and it was very noisy so I went back to the original fan and fan-clutch. I then started having overheating problems. At 60-65 MPH the temperature ran right around 190 degrees; if I tried to keep up with freeway traffic 70-75 MPH the temperature would shoot up to 230-235 degrees. I would then slow back down and temperature would go back down. For 28 years I messed with this problem. I live in the San Diego area and over the years I have made countless trips to Phoenix AZ, 700 miles R/T, to the Carmel Meet, Placerville Meet, Alamogordo Meet, two Las Vegas Meets. All the time driving 60-65 MPH. I installed Hi-flow water-pumps, four-row radiator, centrifugal-clutch then went back to OEM configuration. The engine was rebuilt 23 years ago with a salvaged Imperial 413 block. Same problem. For 28 years I drove 65 MPH!

Just before the Pasadena Meet the thermal fan-clutch went out. I got pretty good at changing fans, water pumps and fan-clutches. I got a new thermal fan-clutch from O’Reilly’s and installed it. The vanes on the old clutch were over an inch away from the radiator. The new clutch vanes were 1/2 inch from the radiator (same as my '64.) What a difference! The car no longer overheats! I drove to the Pasadena Meet 125 miles at 70-80 MPH and temperature never went above 210 degrees.

300 Regards...George Ver Berkmoes

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