Forum Discussion
jplante4 wrote:
If you could move JUST the radiator to the side, I would agree that it;s a better solution. However you also need to move the fan and the hoses leading to and from the radiator. Now, instead of having say 4 feet of rubber hose to catch a rock or a tire tread and spring a leak, you're presenting 15 feet of hose to the elements.
Instead of a simple belt driven fan, you now have a maze of hydraulics to run the fan on the side. I don't know why they went with hydraulics instead of a simpler electric fan. Apparently the mechanical engineers are king at Cummins.
It's just 5 more things to break.
Actually, the fan mounting is not designed by Cummins engineers, but rather the chassis builder, (i.e. Freightliner or Spartan). Spartan uses a hydraulic motor to run the fan and FL has a belt driven pulley that rotates a shaft that is connected to a right angle gear box that rotates a shaft that is connected to an electric clutch that runs the side mounted fan! Not sure which is worse as both are known to fail! However with a side mount radiator (and despite a >$1000 repair for which ever fan drive system fails) you can easily change your $15 belt. Oh, and the side mount radiator needs to be cleaned out periodically also.
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