[whitetop]

Sam
Great looking car. It has a nice stance.

O.K. Here is my 2cents on the fiberglas fans. As long as they are decent to begin with you will not have any problems. Use your common sense when using a used one. 8-9 years ago I talked with the then owner of Flex-a-lite, Gary, about these fans coming apart. He said of the stories you heard were like the car found in the barn left by the guy who was killed in Vietnam-most are fabricated. Gary said Flex-a-lite had very few cases of these fans coming apart in their day. The majority of those that were returned were caused by installers error: Such as blades hitting componets(the blades actually stretch to the front under power), guys shortning blades and they were off balance, guys turning their engine over by hand using the fan, tightning down the bolt too tight and gouging the fiberglass etc. Gary said the actuall fans that were blowing apart were the aluminum ones. There was actually a fed gov't recall & class action lawsuit of these fans back in the late '70's or early '80's that effected almost every manufacturerer. These fans were the ones that WERE dangerous. These were the fans THAT did come apart. I think people are getting these confused with the fiberglass ones. BTW He sent me 2 NOS fans. If they were defective or dangerous I don't think he would of done that.

If you look at a fiberglass fan it is not only held in place by 5 rivets (each blade)but the blade is sandwiched in between very tightly by two fiberglass backings.

Walk in the pits of any drag strip and you will still see these fans still in use. A guy in my hometown, Jeff Ross is the '2001, 2002 IHRA Stock Champ and record holder(and maybe 2003). He bought a '74 Barracuda new, ran it on the street for one year and it has been on the strip ever since. The fiberglass fan on his car was installed by him in '75 and is still on the car. It has seen thousands of 8000 rpm runs and is still going strong.
Gary from FAL said the reason the fiberglas fans were disc was not because they were coming apart but the manufacturers came out with better materials and it was easier to mold a one piece fan. The fiberglass fans were still in the '79 Mr. Gasket catalog and Rocket where still selling theirs well into the early '80's. These fans first came out in '67.
Pretty good run for a "defective part" IMO.
Dave

P.S. Reher Morrison & Shepard ran this fan on their '84/'85 P/S Camaro. It is seen in the pics in Hot Rod when it was featured_maybe July '85?. I have also seen this fan on one of Jenkins engine in the early '90's. It piced my interest that he still would be running one of thes fans.
If they are good enough for these two I'll keep mine. Sorry for the long rant