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Subject:Re: Questions/Advice Needed 1980 VW Westphalia
From:Scott Daniel - Turbovans
Date:Fri, 18 May 2012 21:34:27 -0700

re
> I thought all vans had electric cooling fans which were unaffected by engine
> speed?

You are correct there....on all water-cooled vans ..
the radiator cooling fan operates independently of road  or engine speed.

the van doesn't even have to be running , if the coolant at the sender
in the radiator gets  hot enough ..the fan gets turned on.
Usually air speed provides enough air flow through the radiator.
In a rare case you can be going up hill at say 30 mph with tings pretty
warm, with enough of a tailwind that there's not enough air flow ..and
rad fan will come on.

btw ..
talk about excising the old text..
in this Mozilla Thunderbird email program ..
if you select and copy some text like I did above ..
it automatically takes away everything else.

the water pump ..
( and the alternator too ) we never think of this ..
but since their pulleys are smaller than the crank pulley those are both
turning faster than the engine.
That would mean if you are turning 4,500 rpm ..
the water pump might be doing 5,500 rpm or more.
Someone can measure the pulley diameters and figure out the ratio.
Roughly ..water pump turns at something like 1.2 times the crank speed.
and the alternator considerably faster yet.

scott
turbovans.