[Purcell69]

The gauge cluster is all sorted now and the speedometer has been calibrated. Things took an unexpected turn ten days ago when the house flooded. A few days prior, I noticed some warping in the wood floor in the hallway, but wasn't sure what the cause was. Two days later, I found water around the base of the water heater and under the laundry room wall, which I had attributed to a failed water heater tank, as it is an eleven year old unit that was well beyond the six year warranty period.

I took Thursday off from work and fired up Ethyl for a trip to Lowes for a replacement water heater. On my way to Lowes, I could smell melting nylon, or something similar. I pulled over to check under the hood, thinking I had a tail from a ziptie that was cut off and ended up on the exhaust. Nothing was obvious, so I continued on. Ten miles further down the road, the smell was stronger, so I pulled over again, this time shutting the truck off. Now I could see smoke coming from the electric fan motor.

I disconnected power from the fan, stopped for a hair cut to let the engine cool, then turned back for home. Ethyl stayed at normal operating temperature for the drive, only warming up to 210* while stopped at a traffic light. Clearly, my cooling system was doing its job.

I swapped trucks and went back to get the water heater. Once it was installed, I took to getting some laundry done for the next work week. I napped for a bit, only to wake to an odd "popping" sound coming from the vent duct work. While looking for the cause, I found the hallway was now flooded. There is a water leak under the slab that was bubbling up inside the wall behind the water heater. I shut the water off and began to strip out the carpet and wood flooring, as there was water under the vapor barrier, as well as between the barrier and the flooring. Once that was done, I vacuumed up the standing water while Kim called the insurance company.

We are covered and that ball is slowly rolling. It appears 2/3 of the house has been affected by water damage that wasn't initially detected, as well as water that got into the under the slab duct work. We are running fans and a dehumidifier to dry things out in the meanwhile, but we may be out of the house up to 6 months for the repair work to be completed.

This will, of course, affect vehicle projects for the remainder of this season, as there is not a shop to work out of, so everything I do is done Spring-Fall.. I am not certain what the insurance company's plan is, but I am leaning toward a travel trailer on-site so we can continue to keep 24 hours care for the horses, not to mention security of the property/materials while work is being done. Everything in the home will need to be removed for the repair and remediation work to be done. Fortunately, it is a small house.

While we were dealing with this, I ordered a replacement fan. I had been using a two speed electric fan from a 1995 Ford Taurus 3.8L. This is the one the Jeep crawler guys turn to. At low speed it is supposed to flow around 2,000 CFM and at high speed it is supposed to flow around 4,000 CFM. I had been running mine on low speed, constant on with the ignition, through a 40 amp relay. The plan was to set it up to kick the high side on with the A/C compressor, once I installed the air conditioning, but I had not got that far yet. The morning the fan failed, it was hotter out than it had been and I was anticipating having to sit in traffic, so I switched the fan over to run on the high speed side. Apparently, that fan was never meant to run in constant high speed mode, and after 15 miles of driving, the motor decided it had enough. Entirely my fault. The kicker of it was the engine never ran hotter or cooler based on the fan. With the stock 195* thermostat, Ethyl runs a solid 200-205*. When the fan failed, I drove home at highway speed at 205* the entire trip, with the exception of the time I spent at a red signal light, where the temperature climbed to 210*. Once I started driving, the temperature dropped right back to 205*.

Clearly, I don't need a fan unless I am sitting, (or when I am running A/C). The Ford fan only covered about 2/3 of my radiator core, and was not made to be used with this truck, though I did build some brackets to make it work. It was something of a pain to remove because of this, so if I ever had a failure on the road, a traveling repair would take some time.

Instead, I opted for the Flex-a-lite Black Magic Extreme as a replacement. Sure, it is a "universal" fit, but it covers all but 1" across either the top or bottom of my radiator core. The CFM rating is in between the High and Low sides of the Ford fan, and it came with a bracket kit and a controller, so it can be set up to run as needed rather than constant on. I began the install yesterday afternoon, but I am not yet done. I still need to bend the brackets to fit my application and finish the wiring, but end result will be a much cleaner installation. The shroud material is much thicker than the Ford unit, although the size of the fan blade is similar at 15". In all, the Flex-a-lite seems to be a very sturdy unit, though I am reasonably certain the cause for the Ford fan's failure was due to my error, not the design of the fan assembly itself.

I did take a photo of the Flex-a-lite kit before I started working on it, and have started making a video of the install.

-Joe