dak911

What is involved in taking the fan off and having it polished or powder coated, anyone have any pics?

TC_SJ

I would love to polish my fan too, need to know if there is a shop in San Jose can do this for me.

Tan

Sacto S

I believe I recall a detailed example of your project on their website.

r911

Polishing won't last unless you clearcoat over it - powdercoat will hold up the best. Yes, check Pelican and do a search there - dozens of posts on this.

RogerS

Your fan surfaces will quickly oxidize if you just polish it, so powder coating is the only durable fix to ugly fans.

The fan is relatively easy to remove. The best instructions for removal are found in "101 Projects" or other service books. Follow the instructions for how to remove your alternator and your fan and fan housing will also be removed.

You need to refinish both the fan and it's housing. Don't polish your fan and housing. That's a waste of effort.

Simply let the powder coater in your area bead blast or carefully sand blast them. They have to do this anyway, to get the powder coating to stick.

The best color to choose is clear gloss because it will make the fan and housing look better than new for many years. Hopefully you will not choose "bitch" red or some other bright color to try to make the engine look hot.

si Banker

Glass beading is the way to go however if the powder coater puts the part in a "bake-off oven" prior to beading it will getrid of any grease or oil that could be inpregnated in the surface.

There are many different types of powder coat so make sure that your coater knows what type of enviorment the fan has to exist in and what clearence issues you have. You don't want thhe coating to thick. FWIW

OneNineElevenGuy

I spent days , days polishing mine. After I put it back it looked GREAT! After a few weeks, it started to gray again. I do polish it up before the shows. It takes some time but still looks HOT. Im not sure I would Powder coat either. I have heard that even powder coating will eventually pit off as contaminates pass through those spinning blades.

dak911

So, who has say, 50,000 miles on their Powdercoated or painted fan?
Did it chip or wear off.
There is a treatment that I used to "clean" the case of the transmission (GM 700r4) I used in the Jag conversion, it came out looking new. (I don't remember the name, but it was some kind of aircraft chemical I think)
Can that be used to clean the fan, what about clear coating it with somekind of Epoxy clear?

si Banker

You can powder coat in clear over glass beaded alloy, looks great

RogerS

Clear gloss powder coat is very thick and durable. It will last for years unless you drive in a lot of sand storms. It's so thick that I even had to sand it off the fan tips so the fan would fit back into the housing.

It maintains the natural color of the fan and housing metal but the metal will not be as smooth as a carefully hand polished surface due to the sand or bead blasting requirement. See the attached pix of my clear powder coated fan and housing that's about a year old.

The one negative of powder coating is that it is very difficult to remove, and must be removed if you ever need to repowder coat.

scottb

Pull the fan and send it to Al Reed. He'll polish and powdercoat it, and you will be very pleased with the results. The cost of shipping to/from Southern California will be negligible, and Al's results are spectacular.

Dan in Pasadena

Couldn't agree with Scottb more. Al Reed is the way to go. I had my Phonedials fully polished as well as my Cam tower on my 944. You will LOVE the results. Al's the best.

3.2SLANTNOSE

Yep, polish it first, then powder coat, it will look better than new.