FWIW. It's been steadily getting worse and showing symptoms for the past couple months...extra fan howling noise under the hood and lower RPMs and lots of drag on the motor making it a pill to drive around town. Now it pretty much wont unlock ever where as it used to after driving around a few minutes...you could actually feel the moment it unlocked and a bunch of drag came off the engine. Then the added drag caused the pump to start leaking a little awhile back when it sat overnight, but that seems to have stopped for whatever reason.

Already got the new water pump and t-stat and some other goodies, plus the rad needs to come out because the front of it is filthy and plugged up. Should I even entertain the idea of an aftermarket fan clutch and save a few bucks is the question or just get another Motorcraft. Suppose I better do it right and put a new pulley on too.

Didn't somebody attempt to retrofit a T444E electromagnetic clutch around here?

 

@Kwikkordead was just mentioning something about a severe duty clutch fan this morning in one of his posts. He may have more info on it.

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...an-clutch.html

There's a video of someone running one on their bus' 7.3. Once I saw that I was sold; not going back to the viscous clutch.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/394948254193 <- Looks like there's a couple on the 'bay right now (no harness or switches though).

Thing is though you need a new (six bolt) fan. The 6.0's six bolt fan might fit... didn't try it myself. I ended up ordering the nylon T444E fan.

 

What coolant will you use?

 

This is the fan clutch that I purchased at someone's recommendation here on FTE. I forget which conversation it was, but this is the one that he told me that has given him flawless operation for 80k or something like that. So far it's been functioning as it should, but I haven't had the change to really put the truck to work yet pulling the RV on a hot summer day.

 

I'm going to give that one a shot I think. If it's worked at least that well I guess I'll make an exception this time save myself the extra money they want for the Motorcraft. Thanks.

 

At some point I may get around to doing the injectors and cups and switch to the red ELC coolant, but mine still has the green stuff in it. That would be sweet not to have to worry about adding the coolant additive anymore.

 

So is the normal operation of this type of clutch either fully on or fully off? That would be a real pig around town with the AC compressor running and the fan running at the full speed of the pulley.