happy holidays all:

well, i pulled my vacuum pump yesterday to look for an oil leak. all ok there, but when i reassembled my engine compartment i left off my fan shrowd because i hate to mess with it to do work on the car. anyway, i can swear i am like 3-5 C cooler now...about two needle widths on the gauge.

just an fyi to all

ps. it is must be extremely easy to loose a hand, i would be very mindful if i leave mine off. recently i was fooling with an air conditioner fan (plastic) and i was turning the motor shaft with a drill to measure output current and before i felt a thing i knocked a part of fingernail off. all ok now but it happened before i could tell it.

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MIKE
1987 300D Turbo, 225K
124.133/603.960

It should run cooler with the shroud in place. Without it, the fan moves air from wherever it can. With it, it's moving all it's air through the radiator.

Give it a couple of days to see if the temp change lasts.

The shroud is VERY important come this summer, assuming you can still drive with one hand cut off! Running cooler is not always better. If a shroud wasn't necc. then a manufacturer would not install it.

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81 300CD (sold) 1972 280 SEL 4.5 (sold) 1966 250 S 4 spd (sold) 1974 450 SL (sold) 86 BMW 325ES (sold), 1973 280C (sold) 1988 300 SE.

my experiece is that the car will run cooler on the hiway, yet hotter in (summer) stop-and-go traffic with the shroud removed.

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Cheers,
Robert

With no shroud, air moves alot like electricity, the shortest path with least resistance, and that is from AROUND the fan and thru the fan, without a shroud the fan is going to suck the air around the fan from behind, not really pulling anything thru the radiator. would a hovercraft float without the skirt(shroud)?

if youi want COOLER air..replace the fand AND shroud with an electric fan w/ thermostatis switch. low profile allows you to still work on things on the front of the engine, a shroud is still present, and it's likely the fan is going to move twice or three times as much air as the factory fan. and it'll stay cool at idle.

but as said before, cool isn't always good with diesel engines. heat is one of the ingredients for efficient combustion....

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RIP: 80 300SD
RIP: 79 450SEL
2002 E430 4matic (212,000km)
2002 ML500 'sport'

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FACEBOOK: PANZER450

well guys, thanks for all the input. i will be keeping an eye on the temp gauge and the fan shrowd in the trunk should i have to install it in an emergency.

i found it an enlightening discourse listening to everyones theories, lord knows this is one of the few places for it.

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MIKE
1987 300D Turbo, 225K
124.133/603.960