deekay911

I had to change my alternator belt, and found the issue that the triple square socket seemed too tight for the alternator shaft. I decided to bite the bullet and just take the alternator off so I could clean the hole for the triple square. I figured I could change the voltage regulator and brush pack while I was 'in there', but then I found this damage on the fan which is going to increase the bill a little. That's quite some delamination. Only consolation is I caught it before the fan broke up and grenaded everything around it!

Sagres74

Wow! Glad to see you found it before it found you. Time to check mine out as well.

Peqoud

I can tell you from personal experience how much your "biting the bullet" dive in saved your ***. Mine exploded a la 6k rpms, sliced both belts, nicked the AC coupling badly, and managed to dent the crank pulley so badly the belt couldn't ride properly. I tried for hours to free that pulley myself and swap it out and finally gave in and sent her in to the man for swapping (and much $$). Cheers to your find.


Nick

C4SJOHN

Deekay911, now many miles are on your 993. Is this a age, or a mileage issue....

deekay911

I have 105k miles, and it looks like everything was original. The alternator brushes were about on their last legs too, so probably saved myself a couple of potential stranding episodes here.

I would hazard a guess that it's more related to use than pure age - heat cycles and physical stress.

NYC993

****, that's crazy. Looks the fan was touching the housing. Why would that happen?

deekay911

There's only a little evidence of the fan touching the housing at some point, and I think it was more that the delamination occurred, distorting the fan blade, then it touched rather than the other way round.

NYC993

Certainly could be the case as well, which makes sense.
I was looking at the lower blade in your pic and it looks like it touched the housing.

Ron

If you need any help or special tools required for job which I may have do let me know. If you have not already purchased the parts you need from the dealer let me know as I have an account there and probably save you some money.---ron

techman1

Currently replacing the fan. Kinda the same issue. Heard the fan hitting, and saw the rub mark on the shroud. Thought I would get off easy, just bearings, maybe redo the alternator.

Upon removal of the fan, two of my blades look like yours, and a third just starting. This on a 1995 with 82k miles.

Good news, seem to have got a good price at Sunset, ordered last Friday, got it Monday!

deekay911

Thanks Ron!! Hope all is well with you

Mike J

Fixed a 95 993 recently with exactly that problem - but the main fan bearing was worn, the fan was sagging and rubbing on the shroud, and eventually two blades let loose, shredding one of the belts, and even impacting the bottom of the trunk lid. the theory that those two were the highest on the fan and taking a lot of micro impacts due to impacting the shroud.

The break looks similar to the OP's picture - with dark spots indicating that there has been a crack on the blades for quite a while, it almost looks dirty. No delamination, just failure of the blade.

We put in a new fan with new bearings, and all is good with the world. Mileage was around 110,000 miles.

Cheers,

Mike

techman1

editWork update- Just finished new fan install:
Removal was a pain, getting the 4 nuts off the wiring cone cover...a pain.
Next, removing the three wires from the alternator..more pain.

I skipped right over removing the belts, the difficulty pales in comparison to the four cover nuts!

Ordered the new fan from Sunset, great effort to get it to me. Ordered on Friday, delivered Monday.
Compared to the old one, the new fan bearing left off the small locating pin, which made it a challenge to properly orient the first set of pulley hardware.

Time to hook up the alternator wires. Studied the cavity a little, and I believe I discovered a missed detail, which made my install so much easier. Almost painless! Remember the rubber fan duct piece, that we regularly have to address on the forum? ( Just jinxed us, it will come up tomorrow!)
Remove it!!!!!

This makes reaching in back to connect the alternator, and to replace the cover and... those four nuts? On in two minutes!

I do not remember anybody listing this as a part of the alternator/fan FAQ, Tutorial, or on Mike's site. If I missed, I am kicking myself, it moved this from a dreaded job, to a kid and spouse in the garage, not burning their ears off job!


EDIT:Just checked, of course Mike DOES mention loosen the three hold down bolts, and the next picture, if you take time to look closely, shows it removed while removing those four nuts!

deekay911

Luckily I figured out that it is way better access to remove the plastic shroud piece after only 10 minutes of struggling at the back of the alternator I agree, I too thought that might be a good tip worth adding to the DIY.

Foxman

Glad you spotted the damaged fan before it caused more problems. I found the same deterioration on the fan of my C4 with 120,000 miles when we dropped the engine last winter. The damage wasn't too extensive, and I managed to file and bead blast off all of the corrosion before repainting and clear coat. Definitely something to watch for on these cars.