green fiberglass flex fan

[musclcar]

picked one up from a local swapmeet.it shows alot of age,faded fiberglass blades, stained metal parts.what is the best way to clean up this fan or am i just wasting my time [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/burnout.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/flag.gif[/img]

[NCGuy68]

We ran those fans on the old NHRA drag cars. They were called "Flex-Lite" fans as I remember. The blades would flatten out at higher RPMs' offering less parasitic drag on the motor.

A light blast with glass or aluminium oxide might help the metal stains. Not sure of a way to bring back the green glass blades.

A word of caution: Over time, the blades would stress-crack and fly apart. More of a novelty then anything else now.

[whitetop]

Chuck
What size is the one you picked up 17 or 18"? A good way to clean up the stains is with Napa rust remover. Will remove all rust stains and not hurt the fiberglass. I start by scrubbing it down with dishwater detergent then spray on the rust remover over the rivet area. I then take steel wool and go over that area. If you find one of the fans with paint on them never put fiberglass paint remover on it. The fiberglass will swell up like a sponge. I have used model car paint remover as it's alot less harmfull but it takes forever to remove the paint.

These fans are tougher than what you think and I still see many on drag cars when I'm walking through the pits. They got a bad rap for flying apart but when you ask someone did your's personally come apart they say no but heard a friends did. Kinda like a cars version of an "Urban Legend" Unless the fans has severe cracks I would not be alarmed to run one for regular street driving with regular rpms. The blades are sandwiched in between 2 pieces, probably actually safer than todays blades that are not.

Other companies that made these fans include Mr. Gasket and Rocket. Flex-a-lite made a version that was with orange blades caled the "HPX". Was a drag version. Probbaly the rarest version to find.

[musclcar]

my buddy just sent me pics,the hub looks good it needs a little cleaning.the blades look ok a little faded ,no obvious cracks but one tip looks funny.it looks like it's chipped from what the pic looks like [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/burnout.gif[/img]

[NCGuy68]

Not doubting anyones' word one this subject, but I personaly had a piece of the glass blade bust off on my E/Stock Z28. Thankfully, no damage was done.

After that, I was very cautious around 'glass blade' fans.

This is not to say that they are bad....just be carefull when dealing with them.