As many of you know I am an auto claims adjuster and thus investigate and handle the aftermath from auto accidents/injuries.
I had a really strange case this last year. A fellow upon the suggestion from his auto mechanic replaced the stock fan clutch set up on his 1991 chevy 4.3 blazer with a flex fan about four years ago.
The engine had been running kind of rough, and he took the blazer back to his mechanic to check it out.
The owner of the shop is about 65 years old, heck of a nice fellow. He had the hood up on the blazer, engine running, and he was holding the RPM higher than idle trying to diagnose the miss in the engine. Without warning, he hears a strange sound and lets loose of the throttle linkage to see what it was. When he looked down his left arm was resting down in the engine bay and he was squirting blood all over the shop like a stuck pig. He never felt anything but a dull thud and heard the noise.
What happened? The flex fan fractured at the hub area right where the blades come out of the hub and do most of the twisting as the engine speeds up and slows down. The blade came out like a butcher's knive and cut his arm off above the elbow clean. It could not be reattached due to other health conditions that this fellow had been suffereing.
He nearly lost his life, as he was having problems with his diabetes, heart, etc. and the blunt trauma to his system nearly over loaded him.
So, this further reinforces why I am a proponent of electric fans whenever possible, and I try to avoid staning in the fan blade/belt path of an engine while it is being revved.
Hmmm, made you think twice about that flex fan....didn't I?
You know, it's a funny story. I'm looking at this fan clutch thread and seeing AC, and I'm saying to myself, "what does air conditioning have to do with a fan clutch, besides the cooling aspect?" So, that was my first initial inclination as to the abbr., but then I dismissed it because I couldn't see the relation.
