Okay well im till new to old cars, apparently 84 firebirds should have a thermatic clutch on the fan which I found by my AC guy it dont.

He said that if the motor is spinning the fan it only spins as fast as the motor is moving, he said if I put a thermal clutch on instead the fan will spin faster which means more cooling for these hot *** days in Tampa, FL.

Firstly, is this true or just an AC guy trying to sell me a bs lie?

Secondly, can someone give me a good one to get? Something under a hund that works great (if the above is true of using it)

thanks

Greg

 

the fan clutch cannot turn the fan faster than the water
pump pulley-above around 1500-2000 rpm the fan
will be turning slower than the water pump under most
conditions.
'84 firebirds with belt driven fan originally came with a
fan clutch.

 

Okay, the guy showed me that I do have a fan clutch but said its not thermal which he says allows the fan to turn faster than the stock clutch.

See here is the biggest prob, I know nothing and everyone tells me something different lol I never once get a same answer.

So your saying that regardless of the fan clutch being thermal or non thermal it still only spins as fast as the pump? Which means putting a thermal clutch is useless?

 

the "non thermal"fan clutches do not have the
thermostatic control valve(the little coil on the front of
the fan clutch),so they are "full on"and will let the fan
turn a little faster than a thermal one with a cold
thermostatic coil will but will still limit the maximum
speed the fan will turn-in the fan clutch,driven by the
input shaft bolted to the water pump pulley,is a disc
with concentric grooves that fit into grooves in the
fan clutch body-special silicone oil is in the grooves
and provides the coupling between the pulley and fan
at a certain torque level the oil film"shears"and lets
the fan freewheel at higher engine speeds to prevent
excess horsepower draw.Some mopar musclecars had
non-thermal fan clutches,but most factory ones are
the"thermal" style.

 

okay, so being that I live in FL which summers are fairly hot, what would be best for me? This Firebird is a daily driver, not a weekend race car, so im not looking to max HP or anything lol just wanna make sure I can get from A - B while keeping my engine as cool as humanly possible.

 

i'd just use the one you have on the car as long as it is
working right-fan clutches usually fail in one of two
ways:
-fluid leaks out and fan just lazily turns at less than
300 rpm,not really moving any air...
-bearing seizes and fan rotates at water pump speed
at all times-will cool great,but you will have excess
fan noise and horsepower draw at higher rpm -blades
used with fan clutches usually have a deep pitch as
they are not meant to turn at above around 2500
rpm.

 

hmm,i agree.