Welded fan! Tuesday, 30-Jan-01 07:32:58 207.16.136.2 writes: Well, last night I got ambitious and welded up my cooling fan myself. I have a wire feed welder that worked very well. If you don't want to spend the money for a Berg or ______ welded fan, try it youself. I may get it balanced, but in an effort to change the balance as little as possible I welded in a random pattern. That way if the amount of welding I did on each crimp changed from start to finish, it was evenly distributed around the fan. Ed

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Welded fan! (Ed) (30-Jan-01 07:32:58)

You need to get it rebalanced. The only way to weld a fan and not screw up the balance is with a tig welder, using no filler material. (n/t) (Chuck) (30-Jan-01 11:36:48)

what if you use the tig arc to melt over the tabs?? you are not adding any material to the fan so why would it make it unbalanced?i think that you would only balance it if the fan was un-balanced to start with. (n/t) (bergboy) (30-Jan-01 18:30:30)

That is what I just said. A mig is a wire feed welder like he used a tig is not, you feed the filler rod. (n/t) (Chuck) (30-Jan-01 23:54:12)

Re: Welded fan! (John Kelly) (31-Jan-01 10:52:34)

Plus they tend to warp really neat during welding, which means you should spin them and straighten it B4 balancing (Tom H.) (31-Jan-01 12:09:36)

Re: Ed, Balancing any VW fan is one of the most over looked things there is....>> ( Mark H) (31-Jan-01 23:57:24)

The factory appears to balance the whole alternator/fan on the new Bugs in Mexico (Bruce) (01-Feb-01 13:19:48)

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Any form of welding shrinks the weld area. You will need to balance the fan unless you have figured out a way to get perfect uniformity of shrinkage.

Cheers, John

www.ghiaspecialties.com

John Kelly

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still got the band-aids covering the holes in the side of my car where blades went thru it. Also took out my '73 thing shroud. I know the Berg's fan is straighter and in better balance than a stock German one. You are spinning them up way higher than the factory ever intended.

Tom H.

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If your motor hits 7000RPM then your fan is doing 11000rpm!! Thats fast! If you`ve ever seen cracked tin on a VW motor this is why it cracks. Massive vibration from an unbalanced fan. I have my fan /alternator assembley ballanced together by a Balancing shop. I don`t go to automotive places anymore because their work was not up to standards. I`ve gotten badly balanced parts from the best guys in the the VW and automotive business. Now I go to a guy that does

nothing but balancing. Thats all he does. Automotive , aircraft, big industry. He does balancing for evrybody. And he does it right because thats all he knows. If you can find a place like this you have a better chance of getting your part back "balanced". Good luck,

Mark H

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The top pulley is plated with that gold looking plating and they outer half has a balancing weight welded on after this plating. It looks horrible, and is rusted. When I asked why this was, I was told they balance the whole alternator and pulley and fan as a unit after its assembled. It sure runs smooth, although I've probably never seen much more than 4000 with this engine.

Bruce