I was experiencing the roaring/blowing and lack of power in my 98 Durango recently and I finally seem to have found the answer here! Thanks!
Are there any serious consequences to running with a seized fan? It seems that when I am not towing my boat, I have regular power and no loud revving (blowing) sound (that's when the fan is engaged and working?). But when I am towing my boat it seems to get worse (fan not working?).
I live in a remote town and I cannot get this fixed for a while, plus I am towing my boat an hour and a half this weekend.
There is no overheating, but I've only gone about 70km (40mi) at a time.
Will I have any issues other than lack of power?

 

Could be that your engine was in "limp" mode due to overheating. I had that happen to me once but since then I added an extra efan there have not been any issues of overheating again. "Limp" mode means the computer was limitting how much power your engine was producing so as not to really overheat it and kill the engine. That's why you were going only 40mph or less. Was your engine stuttering? If so, yeah, you were in "limp" mode. The loud roaring is your clutch fan working to get as much air as possible through your radiator to cool off the engine. I would suggest you look into installing an efan to back up the clutch fan. I'm not one of the gurus on this site but I don't think driving around with a busted clutch fan is good for your D. IHMO

 

While I was never in limp mode... my clutch fan was dry (no fluid) and the spring was dried and rusted up whereas it was always on. 203,000+ miles will do that I guess. No driveability issues other than louder noise at startup and the first few minutes of operation as well as a power suck I got used to. Removal of the fan ended all that for me

IndyDurango

 

Thanks for the reply.

It doesn't stutter but I can have it completely floored and have no power (up to about 3500RPM only).

I haven't tried blasting the A/C yet to see if that will provide some temporary relief, as others have suggested.

And like I said, it runs fine with nothing being towed. Just the occasional 30 seconds or so after starting sometimes, so it's not completely shot.

 

What makes it dry? Separate issue or just the fan needing to be removed?

 

The thing I would worry about is if it would put stress on the water pump and it's bearings.

 

Wait, do the 98s have an aux efan for the a/c? If you do then it may be bad. That may be why your clutch fan is doing overtime to cool your engine. And +2 for the pump and bearings.

 

No the 1998 and 1999 did not have the aux fan option....... No E-fan

Take the truck to the car wash and spray out the conensor and into the radiator as much as possible with the power washer. Just don't get too close with it or you can bend your fins. Could just be as problem with it not getting to air flowing through becasue of bugs or whatever. Also check you water/anti-freeze in your radiator.

 

I would opt for a complete system flush especially if I was towing. Not saying this is something that you should do right away but if you are starting to have issues you will want to start with a clean system. The loud roaring sound most likely is the fan is staying engaged to keep the temp down do to poor cooling such as Hydra said, blocked airflow threw radiator or as I suggested, the system needs flushed.


Okay, flushing the system.
2 ways I suggest doing this. well really 3 ways.

1st, buy a cheap replacement radiator and flush the system before installing (can get cheap radiator for around $150-180 if you look around.

2nd pull the radiator out and take it to a radiator shop and have them profesionally clean it out, then flush the system before installing it (another words flush before pulling it out, then pull it have it professionally cleaned.

3rd Just flush the system

When I say flush this is about the best home method
Buy this

Buy this (make sure it is the super flush and not the super "cleaner"


Follow instructions, garden hose is needed


One thing you need to take into consideration is that if you system is having a hard time colling, even though its "not overheating" it is still running warm.. with that said so is your transmission, YOU DO NOT want that to happen with these transmissions. they will not last long under such conditions.