Have been away for a while and have come into this discussion rather late,
but at the risk of beating this to death, here are my experiences with
installing a yellow 8-blade fan on my TR3A:
First, it my understanding that the short fat piece is the extension for the
TR3 series engine, while the longer narrow one went on the TR4's.
If you want an 8-blade plastic fan on your TR3 you can just slap one on -
the correct direction (without reversing the fan). It is VERY close to the
radiator, and you have to notch the edges of the fan to clear the lower
radiator tank rim. I also made the radiator mounting holes (the one on the
car) slots instead of round holes so I could slide the bottom of the
radiator forward about a quarter inch.
Thinking this was too close, I removed the nose piece from the car and took
it to a friend with a lathe who cut it in the middle, "stepped" the cut so
that it slid together and retained its concentricity, and then had the two
halves brazed together at a local welding shop. Cost: about ten bucks. The
yellow fan mounts nicely and misses the radiator by about 3/4"; enough so
you don't have to notch the fan and can also change the fan belt relatively
easily. Oh, I also had to shorten the big mounting bolt which entailed
hack-sawing it off and then cutting about an inch of new threads on the
bolt. Cost of the die: about 15 dollars.
I now see Moss carries a shortened nose piece made expressly to mount a
yellow fan to a TR3. For a while, a guy on EBay was selling shortened
nosepieces made of aluminum. I preferred to stay with the original cast
iron, considering the high torque on the big center bolt.
I also notice that both Moss and Roadster seem to be out of yellow 8-blade
fans at the moment.
I think installation of the yellow fan has been the best cooling mod I have
done to the car.
Dennis
> >
> Shorter fat one is 4 1/8" with part # 108493 stamped on it as per book,
> taller skinny one is 4 3/4" , part # partially gone but looks like it
> starts 128 or 129 may end in 712 or 312 but I wouldn't swear to it, has
> what looks like an A in a circle after that. Both have same diameter &
> bolt patterns.
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