While doing my oil cooler I saw that the fan belts were getting pretty cracked so decided to tear them off to replace. Unfortunately found more issues as I went along. The front bearing on the fan hub is getting bad. Has quite a bit of play on it. Wondering what you wouldn’t recommend for removal. The one service manual I have shows it coming out the top and another shows taking the rad and fan aground off to remove the fan. To take the fan out the cylinders need to be removed as far as I can tell. To take the rad out I’d have to remove the whole canopy as the limb risers are welded back to the main canopy. Another person suggested I could remove the fan and leave it against the rad then remove the pulled and shaft but looking closer at it I don’t think that’s a option. Just looking for clarity and what my easiest option might be plus any shortcuts that I might be missing or misunderstood. 
 

Hi Team,
we used to pull the fans out the top as you describe after unbolting the blade cylinder cross shaft and necessary hoses and clamping suitable blanking plates over the hose and steel line ends, then moving it back some for clearance--tie and block as needed for safety.
I think I have seen that with the cross bar and cylinders suspended safety on a crane very carefully power the assembly back within the confines of the hose lengths and do as described.

Those reversible fans are a known cause of overheating when they have done many hours. The blades are reversible and yours is set as a blower fan--blows out the front-- the keys at the fan blade end in the hub and the slots they set into wear and the blades flatten out and so push less air.
They can be dismantled and the wear rectified or to get out of trouble simply reverse the blades to get full pitch but fan will be a sucker instead but may get you out of trouble for the time being--from memory the blades are recommended to be reversed periodically to clear trash from the radiator cores.
I will see what scans I have on these.

Cheers,
Eddie B.

Thanks for the scans and info. I’ve found if I run the fan to push during the summer months the cat runs a bit cooler and so do i lol. Once it starts to get colder out I switch it back again. I don’t have that tool but should make one so I don’t have to remove the side shield all the time. There is times where it would be nice to reverse it in the winter to blow the rad out a bit.

Sounds like I’ve got more work ahead of me either way unfortunately. Didn’t think there was a shortcut I was missing but was hoping.

May be worth your while to try and find a better pulley while you are into it. That one looks pretty worn and could be slipping quite a bit.
Merry Christmas

wimmera wrote:

May be worth your while to try and find a better pulley while you are into it. That one looks pretty worn and could be slipping quite a bit.
Merry Christmas

They are quite worn yes. I’ve been looking online for replacements but so far coming up empty handed. 

part numbers I think are
3s8415-fan pulley(confirmed with the numbers on the pulley) 
4s6837-crank pulley(unverified just going by sn.)
3s5036 or 7m7589 not sure which it is. Both parts diagrams look the same but have different numbers. Don’t have it off yet to verify.

All these numbers come up in the cat system but say indirect replacement available call dealer. Called dealer this afternoon though and they were a little clueless and just said nla. I did see one listed online for 353$ can’t remember which one it was now. Saw one used one in Australia as well.

Hi Team,
at the Dealer we often re-profiled the belt pulley grooves in our machine shop.
They had a few different shaped tools ground up especially to suit each size of belt groove--the outer diameter would be skimmed down too so the belts ran just above the top of the groove as I believe they were designed to do.
The root of the groove was lowered also to suit so the belts did not run on that bottom surface--obviously there are limits as to how much to remove before you break out the bottom of the groove.
Scan below has some dimensions that may or may not help.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

One possible problem with machining these pulleys is they have no bottom to them. Where the belt would ride if it sat in the bottom of the pulley is a slot roughly 3/8” wide. The sides are grooved enough I don’t think I can go wide and deep enough to restore the proper v shape. The possibility of welding them up and turning them back to size did cross my mind as well. Not sure how weldable they are. I assume they’re nothing to special for material to work with. If I get it apart before the weekend I’m going to have my brother take a look at them and see what he thinks as well. He’s the foreman/lead machinist at a large machine shop. I have a lathe here as well but he has many thousands more hours working with metal then me.

Spray welding might best option to build up the flanges if you can find someone to do it without breaking the bank. Most important that the belt does not touch the bottom. Slippage gauranteed if it does.

Got the fan out today finally. Everything came apart fairly easily thankfully. Was afraid of getting to the bottom bolt but once the lower rad guard was removed it wasn’t to bad. Lifted it up and walked it out onto the track with the chain hoist. From there I just lifted it down and took it apart. Found out the bearings are fine and I’ll likely reuse them as they seem to be in perfect shape. The problem lies within the shaft. Bearings have gone out at some point in time and wore the end of the shaft. That or the spacer they put in is incorrect and it did t tighten in correctly. Thinking I’ll weld the shaft back up and turn it to size as new isn’t readily available here.

American Crane and FP Smith both show having new and used 3S2121 shafts. I would also order a new 5M5957 spacer. Norcan Salvage shows having one [?] Disc from Cat.